“Me and Myself” (A Grade 3 Project)

This project was taken with the need to create self awareness in students. The project began with a small activity where few statements were given to the students about themselves and few movements were attached to it. They were supposed to do that movement if that statement was correct for them, for example-:

• • • Turn around if you like Broccoli

    • Tickle your palm if you have a brother

    • Make a weird face if you like to swim

    • Shake your hands if you are afraid of dogs, etc.

This activity became a warm up as well as a hint for students about what we’ll do in the class and what would be the focus of the class. 

Then in the class itself we did a worksheet on “What I like to” so this had 4 questions-:  

• • • What I like to eat and why

    • What I like to wear and why 

    • What I like to do and why

    • What I like to play with and why

These specific questions were given to students as at age 6-7 if we ask them to write about themselves then that becomes too abstract for them. Therefore, to bring their thought process to themselves and to let them think what actually belongs to them or what are their likes and dislikes, these specific questions were taken. Gradually we moved ahead with concrete things.

It was a stupendous journey! Children came out with great writings and thoughts. When the students were given the worksheet on “what I like to and why” we got amazing answers from them. Apart from self awareness reasoning skills were also getting worked on. 

We took topic favorite fruit after “what I like to do” as it was summer time and students would get various reasons to justify their choices.

After discussing this in the class, we moved on to the “Animals”. Some animals were shown to the students and they had to associate some qualities to them. Some of the qualities that they came out with were loving, friendly, sleepy, naughty, etc. In order to record every child’s response a PowerPoint presentation was made and all the responses of the children were recorded.

After this a home task was given to the students, where they were asked “if you were an animal what would you be? Why? They had to write a paragraph on this. 

When students submitted their writings, the reasons that they focused were the qualities/characteristics of that particular animal. They wanted to become like that so that they can also live a life like them. By now, they were looking deep into the qualities or characteristics that define a particular animal.

When we discussed the task in the class, few students had chosen similar animals. But, their reasons were different from each other. This is the point where they understood about their uniqueness, their individual choices with the reasons.

Next, we took a story named “hamara john” . This story talked about the individual differences and qualities that are intrinsic and these are what makes us different from each other. After reading the story students were asked some questions like-:

• • • Did you like the story? Why or Why not?

    • Which character did you like the most and Why?

    • List down some of the qualities of John.

    • What would you have done, if you had found an abandoned egg?

The answers that we got from the students were really thought provoking, students did a deep thinking to answer the questions. Here from the story what we wanted to let students think on is how to do things independently. So, the next task students had was to list down things that they can’t do independently, they can do independently now and things that they want to do independently now but are unable to. Once listing was done they were asked to reflect on how they can make themselves independent, students gave great answers like by practising things, by observing how they are being done, etc.

Student’s various answers were like-: dance steps, Madhubani paintings, floral decorations, motor fans, etc. after discussing this in the class, the students were given a home task where they had to answer 4 questions that were-:

• • • What are some of the challenges you face while making or creating what you like?

    • Are you able to overcome those challenges? 

    • If yes, then how?

    • If not, then what are some of the ways to overcome those challenges?

 The focus here was to ask students that when they create something new, what all difficulties they go through. If there was a challenge or conflict while doing that then how did they resolve it. This activity made students think about conflict and its resolution. 

We had an immersing discussion around what students have created?  what challenges they had faced? and how would they overcome that? Every child was asked one by one and their responses were added to the power point presentation simultaneously. Others could also see the responses and read them as well.         

After this we moved ahead by asking students what are their individual goals for this year. This made students think in the direction about what they can improve this year. After discussing their goals they were asked, how they were planning to achieve their goals. Students themselves found solutions to their own problems and what they have to do to improve things that they can’t do independently now.

Then the focus was brought to the hobbies of the children. In order to make them think about their hobbies,  first they were asked what they are good at. Once they got an answer to this question, they were asked what they would do, when they get bored. This made them think about what they like to do the most and what they are good at.

We moved ahead in the project by asking students that since these days we all are at home for the entire day, so what do you like the most about being at home? Students gave very bright answers, they mentioned that they were doing things/ activities that wasn’t very frequent to them like spending quality time with family, bird watching, playing with toys, yoga, etc., Then they were asked about their favorite spot in the house, so that we can talk to them about at which place they feel good and peaceful, and they can describe their feelings.

Next we started talking about their families and what family means to them. Here, we wanted students to focus on how their personalities are being formed by their family.

Moving ahead, the students were asked if they have any pattern in their body and is that symmetrical or not? From there we brought in the concept of horizontal and vertical symmetry, this gave them the awareness of how their body looks like. Then students were asked to write a poem on “Maths in me”. 

From there, we moved to My body. Now, we started talking about the body. Being aware of oneself is a major part of self awareness. Since we were dealing with 6-7 years of age students, we did quick riddles on guessing the body parts and students were really quick! We integrated the body with mathematics and students were

asked to find mathematics around them. Once they were done with this, we asked the students to categorize their body parts into-:

• • • Uni, single, one

    • Duo, couplet, two, pair

    • Many, three or more, countable

    • Uncountable

Along with categorizing body parts under different heads, they were also seeing synonyms for different words.

After completing this they were asked to make a portrait of their body and they had to mark different body parts as uni, duo, many, uncountable. Making a portrait makes the concept clear and gives them a justification of whatever they have categorized is correct or not.

About the author:

Ms. Mahima George is in pre-service training at Prakriti.