Sunday, September 9, 2012

Did you notice the colorful childrens' names displayed in our room?

Multi step project....first step....

Saul and Patrick are tearing paper strips into smaller pieces, great for getting both hands working together.

Daniel is tracing over the first letter in his name.  Since we did this on an individual basis, we were able to talk about the  proper formation of the letter unique to that child and also the fact that all names start with a capital  letter.



Emma and Charlotte are squeezing glue on to their letter.  It truly is a challenge for many children to use just the right amount of pressure to get the glue to come out in a manageable flow while moving their hands to follow the lines of the letter!


Alex is carefully placing the torn paper on his A.

Amelia is counting the letters in her name and then deciding how many rectangles she will need to choose so she can complete the project.

Noor knew she had 4 letters in her name but only picked 3 rectangles.  (The N was already done......great example of Noor problem solving, and of how we try to bring critical thinking into so many activities during the day.)

We wrote the lower case letters on the rectangles and then the kids arranged them in correct order.

The first rectangle Briana picked up was the i and she carefully placed it on the paper as you can see.  We asked, " Why didn't you put the i right next to your B?"  Her response was great.  "Because that's not how my name goes!"  You can tell Briana already has a mental image of the spelling of her name, and good spatial perception!

Zoey knew she had 4 letters in her name.  She's using the pointer to find out who else in the class has the same amount of letters, and learning to recognize her classmates' names in the process.

Final step.....Everyone came to circle and we asked each child to tell us the number of letters in their name.  If they couldn't remember,  they were quickly able to recount.  Then, with the childrens' help, we grouped the names according to the number of letters in them.  We hung the names on the cabinet.  Here's something we didn't anticipate.  Emma was absent  on that day and the children were very very insistent we make sure to leave a space for her name.  We can already tell we're creating a feeling of community!




We've noticed the children using pointers and studying this name wall.  As Kevin Henkes says in his book Chrysanthemum, our names are perfect...absolutely perfect!

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