The "Me" Quilt

an activity to help students express and share who they are

In this activity students make a patch about themselves according to the instructions given below. The patches are then pieced together to make a class quilt for a wall or bulletin board. Once completed, the quilt can easily serve as a jumping stone to many other activities both oral and written.

material :

• one copy of the "me" page for each student
• coloring pencils, scissors, glue...
• construction paper (pre-cut squares for mounting the "me" patches) Cut the paper to the size you wish for you patches, probably around 20 cm 2.
• yarn (optional)

notions and linguistic skills :

• general vocabulary about oneself
• expressing who we are, our likes and dislikes and inquiring about others

procedure :

• As a warm-up activity, take a few minutes to orally practice the info students will be using to make their patches. Make it a game or simply ask a few questions.
• Hand out the "me" page and brainstorm about it together as a class. (What do they think is the purpose of this paper? What information do they think it asks for?...)
• Explain to the students that they will each be making a patch which will then be pieced together to form a quilt for the bulletin board (or wall). Tell them that in addition to being very decorative, this quilt will serve as a stepping stone for lots of other class activities.
• Tell them that it is important to follow the instructions carefully. If they have done other glyph activities before, tie this one to it.
• Work together as a class to do the page, pointing out each object as you go along.

(Give the instructions orally, make an instructions sheet for them to follow, use an overhead or the board...)

1. If you are a boy, color the happy face red. If you are a girl, color it green.
2. Color the "hair" the same color as yours.
3. In the flame of the candle, write the number of the month of your birthday.
4. Next to the candle (in the open space), write the number of the day.
5. If you are the oldest child in your family, color the first layer of the cake chocolate brown. If you are the baby of the family, color the third layer. If you are a middle child (I call them the sandwich!), color the second layer. If you are an only child, color all three layers!
6. If you were born in this province (or state), color the plate orange. If you were born in a different province (state) or country, color the plate green.
7. Stand up. Let's see how tall you are! If you are one of the tallest kids in the class, sit down and color the ruler light blue. If you are one of the shortest, sit down and color it purple. If you are still standing, you are in the middle! Sit down and color the ruler a sunny yellow.
8. Do you have a pet at home? If you have one pet, color the pet grey. If you have two pets, color it light brown. If you have three pets or more, color it turquoise. If you don't have a pet, color the pet red. (Note: Fish count as one pet!!)
9. Find the cube. If you were born in a different country, color the star bright (fluorescent) green. If not, leave the star white.
10. If your first language is French (English), color the face of the cube that has the star bright orange. If it is not, color the face of the cube with a star hot (fluorescent) pink.
11. If you speak French (English, the first language of the school) at home, color the side of the cube bright orange. If you usually speak a language other than French (English), color the side of the cube hot pink.
12. If you can speak two or more languages fluently, color the top of the cube bright blue. If not, leave the top of the cube white.
13. Color the heart in the middle of the "E" your favorite color.
14. Color the heart with an "X" over it, the color you like the least.
15. Color the heart at the bottom the color of your favorite season: orange for Fall, blue for Winter, green for Spring, and yellow for Summer.
16. Color the words in the "E" according to how much you like these items:

• red: I really like this! Cool!
• blue: It's okay. (Or, as my students say: "bof!")
• purple: I don't really care for this... No way!

(This is a good place to introduce or practice fun ways of expressing opinion.)

1. Add at least four of your own. Color them accordingly.
2. Write your initials in the rectangle joining the "M" and the "E."
3. Carefully cut out the patch and glue it on a colored square (construction paper).

Once the patches have been cut out and glued to the construction paper squares, here's a neat way to stick them together:

• First, lay the patches out to form a quilt. (How you do this will depend on the number of students in your class and the colors you have chosen for the squares.) If you are missing a patch, add an "empty" one (no "me", just the square) and use it to identify the class. Use a second "empty" one to give the patch a title. Use a third for the legend, etc.
• Once you have placed all your patches the way you want them, use a single-hole paper punch to punch two holes on each side of each square that does NOT form part of the outside border of the quilt.

• To make sure all the holes on all the patches line up in the same place, mark them first. (6 cm from the top and 6 cm from the bottom is a good choice.)
• Use pieces of yarn to literally tie the patches together without having them overlap.
• Hang your quilt and admire!

Some ideas for using the quilt:

1. Statistics and graphing: Have students gather statistics from the patches. How many students have more than two pets? How many boys have red as a favorite color? What's the most popular birthday month?... The possibilities are endless.
• This may simply be in the form of oral question/answer practice or as a written activity.
• Kids could work individually or in groups.
• Each person or group could have a specific statistic or graph question to do and then report their findings to the class in various forms, including pie charts, etc.
• Kids could make up the "statistic" questions and exchange them with others. (This is really good for co-op groups.)
2. Venn diagrams: Students choose two patches and compare the info on them.
3. Guessing games and treasure hunt activities. A few examples:
• "Question of the day": There is a person who... Who is it?
• Find a person who has ... , likes ... etc. / Find two girls born the same day and tell me their favorite colors.
4. Oral presentations and written "compositions"

• About oneself or another person (You could number the patches and have students draw a number at random, then present that person.)

As I said earlier, the possibilities are truly endless! Have fun!