If you teach the early grades, chances are you are working on names right now! Most years, the majority of my Kindergarten class comes in unable to even recognize their names. So needless to say, we are spending LOTS of time on name practice activities!
These name practice ideas will help you work on names in lots of different ways – from identifying names, building names, name tracing, and writing names. This is also the perfect time to incorporate concepts of print practice and fine motor activities!
This blog post is full of name practice activities that you can start using in your classroom immediately! And don’t worry, there’s lots of name practice freebies too!
Name Puzzles – With Freebie!
Name puzzles are a great way to practice recognizing, building, and spelling names. These name puzzles can be as low prep as you want to make them! I have three different ways to make name puzzles for your class.
The first is using two sentence strips. Write the same name on both sentence strips. Then, cut one sentence strip apart between the letters. Easy, peasy!
To differentiate this name practice activity, just make less cuts. You may begin by just chopping the name in half, and then slowly cut apart more letters.
You can also use plastic math tiles to make name puzzles. Just write a letter on each tile and let students build! I like this option because the tiles last forever.
Last, you can make printable name puzzles. Just print, write each letter of the name in the boxes, laminate for durability, and cut apart.
You can download these freebie name puzzles HERE.
Name Poem – With Freebie!
We say this name poem at the beginning of each year. I just write the parts of the poem on sentence strips and hang up. Then, I take a student name each day and put it in the poem.
Students LOVE seeing their friends’ names in the name poem, but they especially love seeing their own name in the poem. It becomes one of the first things that they look for each day.
You can grab a printable version of the name poem in the name wall download below.
FREE Name Wall Cards and Activities
Creating a name wall is an amazing way to personalize your classroom and help your students learn each other’s names. I hung up a big pocket chart in my room, and that’s what I hang my name wall cards on.
These free name wall cards are editable so you can add your students’ pictures and names and print!
We use the name wall a lot throughout the year, but especially at back to school. There are so many activities that you can do with a name wall!
Students use the name wall for write the room and while at our writing center. They can use the name wall to spell their friends’ names in a story or to write them a letter.
Mystery names is one of our favorite ways to use these name cards.
Put magnetic letters to spell a name in a plastic cup or baggie. Place a few cups of names with their matching name tags out. Students till spill the letters in one cup and try to find the name they match up to. This is such a fun name game!
You can grab the FREE name wall cards and activities HERE!
EDITABLE Name Printables
Name practice is one of our daily activities at back to school, and i’m always looking for new name practice ideas. That’s why I created this FULLY EDITABLE pack of name printables!
This pack has 16 name worksheets and fine motor activities to help your students practice their names.
It’s auto-fill magic! That means that you only have to type your class list in one time and the entire pack will create itself! How cool is that?
You can use these name practice activities as morning work, independent work, whole group, as homework, or as literacy centers. They provide a fun and meaningful way for your class to practice their name.
With these name worksheets, students will:
- Practice writing their names
- Color their names
- Name Tracing
- Stamp their names
- Dot their names
- Dab their names
- Pin poke their names
- Find the letters in their names
- Build their names with letter tiles
- Build their names with stickers
- Make tear paper names
- Sticker their names
⭐The thing I love most about this pack is how versatile it is, though. Once your students master their names, use it to practice sight words, high frequency words, or spelling words! The possibilities are endless!
Grab the new EDITABLE Name Practice Activities HERE!
