By the end of our school year, most of our students are easily recognizing their own name and the names of all the other students in our classroom. So to make this process a little more challenging, we invited the children to explore their first and last names by putting together a paper name puzzle…
All throughout the school year we have our names up and available for the children to see and use. A name puzzle isn’t the place to begin with name recognition but rather an idea to follow-up the many other ways our students have been exploring their names…
Having spent most of our school year exploring our names and having access to them throughout the classroom, the children were more than ready to put together a paper name puzzle. Mrs. Courtney and I prepared the name puzzle by printing their first and last names out on a strip of construction paper then cutting the names into individual letters. To help make this process more manageable for the children, each child’s first and last name puzzle was clipped together in one stack…
First names were in one color of paper and last names were in a different color of paper. The children used their name cards from our attendance board as a reference for completing their paper name puzzles…
To complete the name puzzles, the children organized the letters in their first name and glued it on another sheet of paper…
Then organized their last name and glued it on a piece of paper…
Looks simple right? Well think again! Having to organize all those letters then glue them down was a challenging and time consuming process for our kids…
Our students did a terrific job organizing and gluing their name puzzles back together because they were ready for this process. I am quite certain if we had tried this a few months ago, the children would have complained that this was too hard so know when your kids are ready for such a big undertaking!
To show you the finished puzzles, Mrs. Courtney and I put together my first and last name…
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Links to Grow On
The Value of Name Recognition in Preschool