The Shape of Me

So this is the portable 2-sided bulletin board outside of my classroom.  As I had explained earlier our building theme is Dr. Seuss so, thanks to an idea on pinterest with a little tweaking, this is the final outcome.  As creative as I could be, I did not draw this.  Instead, I used my projector and traced the outline on black paper. (Clever I know, lol, but this means anyone can do this :) On the first day of school I used this Dr. Seuss' book...The Shape of Me and Other Stuff... to introduce how different we all are and introduced the word "diversity" which they did an acrostic poem with (this was accompanied with a rock investigation to highlight the idea that no 2 things are made the same...which was an activity called "You Rock" (Maybe some other time I could share in detail.) So at recess, while on duty, I took pictures of my students, doing any pose..shape..they chose.  Then after printing out their pictures they were cut out and turned over to show just the outline without the picture.  On the back of their picture they had to create thumbnail sketches of anything that represented who they were, what they liked....etc.  Then They were displayed on the back of the 2-sided bulletin board.    

So as you can see many different shapes with different interests...looks like a quilt :) 

I also use these pictures for three other purposes....1. I try to become familiar with their interests in order to integrate/incorporate them into my activities.  My goal is to make sure I have a way to hook them and create activities that are of interest to them.  2.  These pictures will later be used as writing prompts for journals or during writer's workshop.  3.  Finally when these pictures have served its purpose they will be put into a class book along with a published copy of one of their writings that go along with the picture (I will take pictures of the originals...this way the students can keep their originals and I have just a copy...plus by doing this it is sooo much easier to bind into a book. )