Tell students to bring a small box from home. It should be small enough that it can fit easily in their desks or backpacks, but not so small that they can hold it in the palms of their hands. The box should be sturdy enough that it will not break apart after repeated use. Specifically point out that this excludes things like shoe boxes. Add that the box should have a lid of some kind. Bring in a few extras on the day of the project for students who forgot or were not able to find a box.
On the day you do the project, tell students what a personality box is: a box that expresses a person's individual personality. It should tell others about his interests, his favorite things, his experiences, his background or anything else about himself. The box needs to have at least five different visual features and five different words related to each child's personality. Make a personality box of your own and explain how the different elements show your personality.
Provide students with art supplies such as crayons, markers, colored pencils, construction paper, scissors, glue, painting supplies and stencils. Make sure that students who use paint put newspaper or another kind of cover over their desks. Also provide students with used magazines to cut out pictures from. However, tell them to glue their magazine pictures to a piece of construction paper before gluing them to their boxes, since they will be very likely to peel off if glued on directly.
When their boxes are complete, instruct students to write a one-page paper explaining what the different features of the boxes explain about their personalities. They should also discuss the words they put on the boxes and cite examples from their experience to show how the words apply to them. For example, if a student used the word "kind," she could tell about a time when she took care of a lost cat and returned it to its owner. This paper should be turned in and included in any grade given for the project.