Starring Me Poster Paper – Creatively Creating Awareness

Although the Starring me Poster Paper, focuses on the self-confidence and awareness  it can also be used to develop Communication and Literacy.

One way to help children to develop self-confidence and awareness is to provide them with activities that are challenging but achievable and to get them involved in drawing or taking photographs of their favourite activities or places. This would help them to describe their opinions and personal preferences.

Our Starring me Poster Paper is an A2 (twice the size of A3) double-sided Hollywood-themed resource.  It provides Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) learners with the opportunity to imagine that they are a Hollywood star and enables them to create a visually appealing ‘autobiography’ and movie for their ‘fans’. The end result is only limited by their imagination!!

Activities in the Starring me Poster Paper are broken down into 3 parts:

In part 1, children get to create their autobiography.  Apart from their name in lights, (created by writing and colouring it in), they are able to describe themselves as an introduction to their fans.  They can describe the colour of their hair and eyes and let their fans know when and where they were born and how much they weighed.

Great opportunities for EYFS learners to practise their phonics and enable them to describe themselves in positive terms and talk about their abilities!!

They are also able to draw 2 self-portraits; one showing what they looked like as a baby and another showing what they look like now. They can even put their hand print on the Hollywood boulevard. Ideal opportunity to include some paints!

Of course the drawings will be very basic but the main thing to remember is that you are looking for their interpretation.

Part 2 opens up into an A2 spread. The first section is entitled ‘Coming Attraction’.

This is where EYFS Learners’ imagination come to life!! They are asked to make up a title for a movie about their life.  They then set about creating a mini-storyboard for their ‘movie’. They draw a picture of what they think they would look like as a grown up and they are further challenged by being required to draw a favourite place they’ve visited in the past and somewhere they would like to visit in the future.

The second section of part 2 is entitled ‘MY Top 10’. Here, EYFS learners are able to list their top 10 favourite things. They list their favourite food, colour, book, TV show, place, song, movie, person, animal and toy;  perfect opportunity for lots of discussion and development of literacy

Part 3 is entitled ‘My supporting cast and Crew – My Family.’ Here EYFS learners are able to draw a picture of their family and their pet as co-stars, creating ample opportunities for stretch & challenge discussions.

Apart from developing self –awareness and confidence, all 3 parts create opportunities for EYFS learners to communicate, use literacy and be imaginative as part of Expressive Art and Design.

They can engage in discussion about their preferences and make good use of phonics when listing their favourites.

They can also use this resource as the foundation for further role play. Why not get them to act out their movie or use it as a basis for development of further writing?

Overall, the beauty about this resource is that it can be seen as a project which learners can complete over a number of days or sessions. It fulfills the remit of being challenging but achievable and it contributes to the goal of early years learners developing the confidence to speak to others about own needs, wants, interests and opinions.