Let us look at 'Name'
It is very important that a child know his/ her name and eventually can spell it. Come to think of it, it is a milestone! I know I'm not the only one who was asked by their child's Pediatrician that if my child (months old) turns around or stopped what she's doing because she knew I was calling her, and she went on to checked a little box after I said yes. Right?
Now I've been teaching G her name for as long as I can remember but that doesn't mean she has mastered it, so here are some ideas on things we are still using to let her get more familiar with her name and it's spelling:
1. I call her by her given name - In my culture it's popular to give a child an alias (some just out of this world!); this may lead to confusion when teaching a child his/ her given name. A child may be called Poochie daily, she answers to Poochie daily and so when her parents decide to call her Melissa they may not get the response they were expecting. I'm not saying one shouldn't give his/ her child an alias but minimize its usage and use your child's given name more. Their teacher will thank you :)
2. Labels - It's one of the cheapest way to build name recognition. You can use a permanent marker and label just about everything they own; showing ownership (and I know my daughter loves that). If you do not want it to be written permanently (depending on the object...let's say a textbook) you can use paper tape or labels and write your child's name on it.
Above are labels I designed in Word doc. and I got these cool fonts that I downloaded for free from: http://www.fontspace.com/ .
If you are interested in the fonts for the car, flower and other diagrams you can check out:
I waterproof some to go on G's water bottles. It is about J$7 per label at PACKMART (minimum of 25 labels).
3. Speaking of name recognition, I created these name slips (below) and laminated them for durability. G had fun this morning fishing her name out of a basket and sorting them in two piles; the ones that had her name and the ones that didn't.
4. Mats and Magnetic Letters - I grew up with magnetic letters on my fridge and they are just as good now, just as they were before. We spelled her name on her magnetic board and we used the mats to spell her name. You can make up a simple song while he/ she search for his/ her name; I sung while I clapped and she bopped her head searching.
If you don't have magnetic board, the fridge will do just fine.
5. We unscrambled her name:
6. We searched her reading book for all the things that begins with the letter 'G':
7. Colouring pages, connect the dots, tracing letters... I get free materials here:
c. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ (some materials are at a very low cost but you can find really good free ones too).
8. If you're feeling creative, you can create your own. I did this in Word doc.:
9. As for songs I got some really nice selections from here: http://preschool.uen.org/curriculum/september_s/NameUnit.pdf
Books:
Unfortunately I couldn't find what I desire from my local bookshops but I went online I found these that I thought were really nice....
A) A, My Name Is Alice by Jane E. Bayer. Take a look inside here:
B) Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. Take a look inside here:
C) The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi. Take a look inside here:
Share with me... How do you or would you teach your child his/ her name? What books would you recommend?
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