All About Me is a classic preschool theme because it uses children’s existing knowledge about themselves to learn about others. The unit isn’t really all about them, so much as a chance to build pride in who they are and give teachers a chance to get to know the children and use that knowledge to build community. Before young children can accept others, they must have pride in who they are and their individuality. I go more into this idea and why it is so important here. Today let’s focus less on the theory and more on the how do we do this in our classrooms? One way is creative crafts and activities like this all about me preschool craft.

What I love about this craft is that it doesn’t just create something that will go on display, these puppets will be used for the most important thing in your classroom, play. Children can explore relationships and conflict with these puppets as well as test out new vocabulary or ways of acting before trying it out themselves. Puppets are powerful, and when you make a puppet of yourself, the limits to learning are few.

How To Make The Craft

This post contains affiliate links that provide me with a small commision from any sales generated from the link.

Gather your materials. You will need some wooden people puppets ( I picked mine up at Target, but you can find something similar here ), Crayola skin tone crayons, crayons in various colors, and self-adhesive googly eyes.

Start by telling the children that they get to make a puppet of themselves! Make sure you have enough colors to as accurately as possible match skin, hair, and eye color. Many children aren’t particular about this at this age. However, you want to make sure you have the colors available for the child who is. That matters.

Let them create. This is a great free choice art activity as some children will spend a lot of time representing themselves very accurately.

And some will grab random crayons and be done. Do not push children past their stage of development; it’s great if they want to have blue skin and green hair, this is their creation, and we should be observers, not directors.

Add eyes. Have extras in case someone wants five eyes.

When you everyone is done create a play opportunity for your students with their puppets it doesn’t have to be elaborate. You can set up a puppet theatre or have your block center open, encourage the children to take their puppets to the sensory table and explore!