Making an "All About Me" Book

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Ann Kennedy and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm here to talk to you about understanding the nature of reading. All about me projects one. It is so important to have projects about your little boy or little girl or anybody that you're teaching, a grandchild, niece, nephew, or if you're volunteering inside the schools. They're so simple to make and you'll be so happy you started learning all about me projects. Just take a piece of construction paper, something colorful if you can and then turn around and let the child see, you're going to write all about me, you'll write it slowly, you'll say it, all about me, and you may say to your child, Angela, I want to know all about you because this book is going to be your book about you. You turn the page and we're going to say, I like blank. There's nothing else here, the child hasn't done anything and you may ask and interact, what is it that you like to do, where is it that you like to go, or you may have a theme, what animals do you like? Or do you, what sports do you like or what tv shows? You try to come up with a theme. The easiest and the best is food, and say can you tell me some of the foods that you like so you've got a book cover which is your beginning of learning to read, I like, you write it out, I like, and then you tell your child to go ahead and draw something or to find some cutouts from any of your wonderful little children's books and workbooks that they can use to paste it, and then you'll come back and fill it in. This is an example of another type of all about me book. It could say Johnny likes, because my son's name is Johnny, so, and what are you doing that is so important? You're already showing that your daughter Angela and your son Johnny, they have a name, this is what their name looks like, what they like. So in this case, it's Johnny likes and Johnny I'm going to give you a book and he can either go ahead, and if he likes bananas he can cut them out and color them. You can cut them out for him. Grapes, cut out and color, but all of a sudden, and here's lemons, and if you notice, these are all fruits. You can have a lot of cutouts done. They can draw and now you're writing the words. The most important thing is to do at least two or three of these type of books a week. This is how your child builds their vocabulary, they start learning what their preferences and choices are and it's an interaction and a wonderful activity you can do together that you can also display. That's all about me, part one."