"I Am..." - A Self Worth Craft for Kids

A while back, I bumped into this post at a blog called Brave Girls Club. My 9 year old daughter struggles with poor self image, so this project really touched my heart. Also, I think it is a terrific project for reminding children who they are in the Lord.

A Self Worth Self Esteem Craft for Kids

The Brave Girls Club version is decidedly feminine, but I wanted to make this is a great project for boys, too. If your boy is like mine, he won't go in for all the "gemstones" and flowers in the Brave Girls example - but boys can use anything else they like to decorate their projects. (My little son couldn't wait to get his hands on the glitter. If I had planned ahead more, I might have also bought stickers of things my son likes or gone out in nature and had him collect objects like leaves that could be glued on as decoration.)

The Brave Girls Club has a free printable for many of the components in this craft, including full color faces to print and upper bodies to go with them. But I wanted my children to get more artistic with this project. I thought about having them draw self portraits from scratch, but my youngest would have only found that frustrating. Instead, I printed off some free blank faces templates that the children could add features to.

The original project was glued onto wood. Wood plaques are available at craft stores (as is Modge Podge, which will glue the elements into place securely), but if you don't want to use a wood board, you could just as easily use a piece of foam board, cardboard, or paper. We used card stock.

The Brave Girls Club used 3D objects like foam letters, buttons, and fake flowers. I love that 3D look, but chose to only use what was already around the house - namely sparkly letter stickers and glitter. You could also add clippings from magazines, if desired.

Finally, I wanted to use words and phrases that were hand picked for my kids. (In fact, when we gathered together for this craft project, I told my children I'd made word lists that I felt especially described them. My daughter read hers with a big smile on her face, and when I read my son's list to him, he glowed!) Because our sense of self worth comes directly from being a child of God, I also wanted to add more words/phrases that point to what the Bible says each of us are. (The Brave Girls printable words/phrases are also pretty feminine, so I wanted to create a set for my son that was a bit more masculine.) If you like, you can download a Word file of my word/phrase sheet - or click here for the .PDF. But you should feel free to make your own word list, too. (Just type the words/phrases into a word processing program, put each in a different typeface and color, and print.)

Most of all, have fun, and encourage your children to see themselves as God sees them!

 

2 comments

  1. Thank you for posting this! I had done the Brave Girls Project activity with my daughter’s Brownie troop 5 years ago and wanted to do it again for my younger daughter’s troop but could not find printables!

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