We have been doing many different activities to learn our own names and the names of our classmates.
We have name puzzles where we can practice our own names and the names of our new friends.
Play-dough Names
Mystery Helper - it is like hangman but with student names. The kids love it. I got this idea from the blog Kindergarten Hoppenings. Here is a link: Mystery Helper
I changed it to magnets so that it was quick setup everyday. I have a list of student names along the side where I keep track of who has had a turn. The kids are learning about vowels and consonants with this activity along with letter identification. I keep a list of student names in a pocket chart nearby. It only took a few days before I had students looking at the chart to figure it out. I didn't say anything about looking at it. I wanted to see who would figure it out on their own first. I still have some students who don't understand that the name we are trying to figure out is in the pocket chart and others who just don't understand how to look for who has what letters.
Kindergarten Newsbook - Each day the students have oral language time where we talk with our friends about a topic of my choice. Then we share out what are partner told us or we all have a turn to share with the class. I pick a student to have their news put into our class newsbook. The students are learning a lot about each other and we also sound out the words and talk about letter formation.
