I like Myself Book Review & Activities

Feb 1, 2022 | Book Reviews, DIY Crafts & Activities | 0 comments

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February is celebrated as Black History Month, and I have been busy finding books with black characters that are toddler friendly to add to our bookshelf. One of my goals as a black mother is to constantly remind my children to love and accept themselves for who they are. They must never forget in a world that can be very cold at times that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God that fashioned and created them in perfect love!

I think it is vital for all children to see themselves in the books they are reading so they can dream of being like the characters they admire on the pages of well-written children’s books.
Looking for books with black characters will be an intentional, all-year-round search for us!

I Like Myself Book Review

One of our favourite books at the moment that they can’t seem to get enough of is I like Myself, humorously written by Karen Beaumont and beautifully illustrated by David Catrow.

I Like Myself! lap board book: Beaumont, Karen, Catrow, David: 9780547401638: Books - Amazon.ca

The story is about a very energetic little girl of colour who understands who she is and loves herself for just that!

After describing herself physically, she comes to a conclusion that,

I think these are wonderful words that we can teach our little ones to speak to themselves on a daily basis!

I love all the happiness, self-love and acceptance that are echoed throughout the entire story because of the author’s use of words!

She uses so many words and their opposites in meaning, which I absolutely love!

Our children need to understand that on good or bad days, it does not add or subtract to how wonderful they are. They are lovely in just being themselves and are loved that way!

One of my reasons for even writing this review is because some concepts are not easy to break down for our littlest learners to understand. I am sure you will agree.

I mean, no one really wants the job of expressing to a child that there are people in the world who will not be accepting of them because of their skin colour, hair, or ethnicity. Some people will not accept you because of how you look, which is out of your control, and there is nothing wrong with being different! There is nothing wrong with you when someone struggles to accept you as a person that looks different. Unfortunately, it is a conversation that we must have, regardless of our ethnicity so that our children can always remember to love themselves and to love others because hate is too great a burden to bear! I think the lines below from the story open a door to having this difficult conversation.

Whatever limited preception or opinion that is formed is not who or what you are!

This story is excellent for encouraging our little ones to love and appreciate everything about themselves inside and out. Whenever we read this story, the love the little girl has for herself and her confidence brings so much joy to my girls. I really think the way in which the story is written, people of all ages can love and appreciate it because I enjoy this story just as much as my girls do. I have lost count of the number of times I have read this story, but I never get tired of reading it.

After reading, I Like myself, we did two very simple activities and thought I would share as my girls enjoyed them both.

Play Dough Invitation

This activity was super simple and was ready for play in less than twenty minutes. I rolled out the dough and used the cover of our play dough container to make play dough circles. I then presented them with the circles and a tray of items for them to make their faces.

For this simple and engaging activity, you can use any colour that represents your child’s skin tone or make it fun with any colour of your choice. Our brown playdough was created when the girls mixed all our red and green playdough together.

***Both girls were eager to decorate their play dough faces.***

Items on our tray: These are the items I used but feel free to get creative adding whatever you have or items you believe would work better for you.

Googly eyes
Buttons of diffrent sizes
Beads of diffrent sizes
Pom poms
Pipe cleaners (I cut them down so the girls could use as hair. I contemplated using yarn as well.)

***The girls got creative using the items on the tray. One twin used the black Pom poms for her hair.***

***Their faces when they were created. They continued playing and alternating the items on their play dough faces for some time.***

Self-portrait Painting Activity

I found some canvas at the Dollar Store and drew outlines of faces on them. I then presented my girls with the outlines for them to use their paint sticks to paint portraits of themselves.

***This is a picture taken of our paint sticks with blank canvases. We used two canvases that were a little bigger.***

***One twin using a brown paint stick to colour in her face. I gave them one paint stick at a time because I wanted their faces to be be brown and their hair to be black.***

One twin adding colour to her shirt after gluing on her eyes. I would recommend using colours that work together for this part of the activity because they wanted to mix all the colours and some parts were starting to turn brown.

***They used the red paint stick to make their mouths. It took some time to show up. For a mouth maybe gluing a small piece of pipe cleaner or cardboard would also work.***

***Their portraits completed. I think they did an amazing job and I will be adding their work on the wall in their room.***

If your children are older you can allow them to do their portraits on their own.

These activities allowed us to:

Review names of some body parts and identify them.
Have a discussion about being fearfully and wonderfully made.
Count body parts
Review colours
Work on fine motor skills
Work on spacial awareness
Work as a team
Have fun

I do hope you find the information in this article useful. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us by sending us a message or visiting us @learning.stepbystep on Instagram, Learning Step By Step on Facebook and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for educational resources that will help you and your littles on their learning journey as they continue learning step by step!

Thank you for being here!