All About Me Cube

📝 This post, All About Me Cube, was originally published in 2013 and has been updated with new information and resources.

If I had to choose one beginning-of-the-year activity that my students looked forward to every year, this would be it. The All About Me Cube combines writing, art, graphing, and classroom community into one memorable project. Students love creating their own cubes, and I love all the conversations and learning that naturally happen along the way.

The best part? My own boys still have the cubes they made in first grade, and they’re teenagers now. That’s when you know an activity has become more than just another first-week project—it becomes a keepsake.

Why Make an All About Me Cube?

The All About Me Cube is so much more than a fun craft. It gives students the chance to share about themselves in a relaxed, meaningful way while helping you learn about your new class. As students create their cubes and use them to collect and graph class data, they practice important literacy and math skills while building classroom community from day one.

With this one activity, students practice:

🖍️ Building classroom community

🖍️ Writing and illustrating

🖍️ Following multi-step directions

🖍️ Speaking and listening skills

🖍️ Graphing and collecting data

🖍️ Comparing data using math vocabulary such as *more, fewer, most,* and *least*

🖍️ Fine motor skills through cutting, coloring, and assembling their cubes

Best of all, every child has the opportunity to share about themselves without feeling like they are being singled out or asked to give a formal presentation.

❗️The only planning ahead required is collecting enough clean half-gallon milk or juice cartons before school starts. I always began saving cartons during the summer and asked family and neighbors to help. By the first week of school, I had more than enough!

Materials for the All About Me Cube

✔️ One clean, dry half-gallon milk or juice carton for each student
✔️ All About Me templates
✔️ Scissors, tape, pencils and glue
✔️ Ruler
✔️ Markers, colored pencils, or crayons

Step 1: Prepare the Cubes

Creating the cubes can be a little tricky for young students, so I always assembled the cartons before school started or asked parent volunteers to help. Each half-gallon carton creates a sturdy 4-inch cube that is the perfect size for little hands. Assembly directions are included with the resource.

Step 2: Complete the Templates

Students complete one template for each side of the cube. The templates include their name, age, birthday, hair color, eye color, and where they live.

You can complete all six pages in one day, but I found it worked much better to spread the activity over several days during the first week of school. This gave us plenty of opportunities to talk, write, and get to know one another without feeling rushed.

Step 3: Assemble the All about Me Cubes

Once the templates are finished, students cut them out and glue one page to each side of their cube. After the glue dries, every student has a colorful All About Me Cube that is uniquely their own.

Before we ever graph the information, we spend time exploring everyone’s cubes. Students love discovering classmates who have the same birthday month, hair color, eye color, or other similarities. It is a simple activity, but it naturally encourages conversations and helps new classmates make connections during those important first days of school.

Create 3D Bar Graphs

Now comes everyone’s favorite part!

Gather your students around a large table where everyone can see the cubes. Ask a question, such as, “What color is your hair?” Students bring their cubes to the table and stack them by hair color, creating a giant three-dimensional bar graph.

Repeat the process using each side of the cube. Every graph creates another opportunity for students to compare, discuss, and analyze class data together.

Analyze the Data

As students observe each graph, ask questions such as:

❓How many students have green eyes?
❓How many students have blue eyes?
❓How many students have brown eyes?
❓How many more students have ______ eyes than ______ eyes?
❓How many fewer students have ______ eyes than ______ eyes?
❓Which answer is the most common?
❓Which answer is the least common?

These discussions naturally build math vocabulary while giving students meaningful practice interpreting graphs and data.

Extend the Learning

Want students to record the information independently?

After each graph is created, students can complete the matching data collection page to practice organizing, interpreting, and comparing the information on their own. It’s a wonderful way to extend the math lesson while reinforcing what students observed during the whole-group activity.

Tips for Success with the All About Me Cubes

💡 Don’t try to finish everything in one day. Spread the activity throughout the first week of school.

💡 Tape the carton edges securely so the cubes stand up well during graphing.

💡 Keep color word and month word cards nearby for students who need spelling support.

💡 Have a list of student birthdays available for children who don’t yet know their birthdays.

💡 Display the finished cubes around your classroom during the first month of school so students can continue discovering new things about one another.

Even after all these years, my own boys still have the cubes they made in first grade. They may have started as a beginning-of-the-year activity, but they became a special keepsake that captured who they were at six years old. I hope your students treasure theirs just as much.

Ready to create this memorable beginning-of-the-year activity with your own class? My All About Me Cube: A Getting to Know the Class Graphing Activity includes everything you need—from printable templates and assembly directions to graphing and data collection pages—for a fun and meaningful first week of school.

💚 Grab your copy of the All About Me Cube from my TpT store here.