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The Most Beautiful Thing

What is most beautiful about me?


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Suggested Activities

This challenge invites students to investigate the most beautiful (lovely or wonderful) feature about them as individuals. A good starting point is the story, What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?, by Richard Van Camp. In this book, the author lists many lovely traits and features of horses and concludes with his choice of the most beautiful of these qualities. If this book is not readily available, select a familiar literary character (e.g., Cinderella) and make a list of wonderful qualities, ending with the characteristic that you judge to be the most wonderful. After reading the story, draw students' attention to the word "investigating" used by the author. Ask students, "What does this mean and how did the author investigate?" Re-read the story, asking students to identify the people consulted and what the author asked them as he investigated what was beautiful about horses. List the characters and their responses on a chart. Draw attention to the various features suggested–no answer is wrong, each adds to our information about horses. The story ends with the question, "What's the Most beautiful thing you know about you?" Ask, "How would you investigate this question?" Brainstorm possible ways of investigating (e.g., ask a friend, ask their parents, get ideas from the picture book about what is beautiful). Using yourself as the example, examine what might be beautiful about people, going beyond physical features to include talents, gifts, background and interests. Model this investigation by asking, "What is beautiful about me?" and list your special features (e.g., I sing and play guitar, I tell funny stories, I let the class have centres). From this discussion, ask students how they might decide on the most beautiful thing about you (e.g., everyone knows I do this, what I do is admired, is different from other people).

After students have investigated their own beautiful qualities, invite them to use the suggested criteria to select their most beautiful feature. Ask students to draw themselves at their most beautiful. Ensure that everyone understands the importance of responding positively to others before inviting students to share their most beautiful feature with the class. If sharing their conclusions, students may complete the following: "Some of the qualities that are beautiful about me are ________ but, the most beautiful thing is ________." You may want to adapt the chart and strategies for Selecting the Best Thing (Support Material) to structure and assess this activity.

Last updated: July 1, 2014 | (Revision History)
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