Faith CoLab: Tapestry of Faith: Love Surrounds Us: A Program on the UU Principles and Beloved Community for Grades K-1

Alternate Activity 2: All People Are Special

Activity time: 15 minutes

Materials for Activity

  • Magazines to cut up that include photos of individuals who are not well known
  • Corrugated cardboard
  • Wooden tongue depressors (wide craft sticks; plain or in colors) and permanent marker
  • Craft glue
  • Adhesive magnetic tape and scissors

Preparation for Activity

  • Obtain materials. Find wooden tongue depressors and adhesive magnetic tape at a craft store such as Michael's or A.C. Moore.
  • Cut pictures of individual people out of magazines. School alumni magazines and real estate agency's magazine ads are good sources for images of individuals who are not well known. An online source for downloading pictures is the National Geographic website. Cut all the pictures to the same size. Make sure you have a picture for each child and some extra, so children can choose.
  • Cut the corrugated cardboard into pieces the same size as the pictures you have cut out.
  • Write "All People Are Special" across one tongue depressor for each child.
  • Display pictures on a work table. Set out corrugated cardboard, tongue depressors, and glue.

Description of Activity

Participants make a framed picture of a person they do not know to illustrate the first Principle concept that each and every person is special, whether or not we know them, and whoever they are.

Invite children to choose a picture and glue it to a piece of cardboard, then glue a border of tongue depressors around the picture. Make sure each participant glues one tongue depressor with words on their border.

Place a strip of adhesive magnetic tape on the cardboard back of each child's picture. Invite them to take their pictures home to display on the refrigerator.

As participants work, discuss that when we see a picture we really do not know anything about the person in it except their appearance. Their faces might show an emotion, but we do not have much other information. Ask these questions as they work and complete their project.

  • I wonder if it is possible to believe someone is special, even if we do not know them.
  • I wonder if our looks really tell all that is special about us.
  • I wonder who we can teach the first Principle to at home, at school, or someplace else?