Re: Name Activities

Posted by Jacque/WA/K-1 on 1/01/04

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I think this is where some of my best learning happens each
day....

I love how each time through sort of evolves on it's own---
from picture, name and the name of whoever is writing...to
adding words on shirts (all my kids this year know how to
recognize/read
"Yu-gi-oh", "GAP", "Batman", "Spiderman", "Princess"---and we
now do an equation each day too---I let the Student of the
Day (after I initially prompted) choose what to make their
equation out of. Some days this can take us longer if
someone has a striped shirt and chooses to use the stripes.
I have them help me count and if there are say, three-color
stripes we might have an equation that reads 12+10+13 and
then I ask them for their estimates which I write down and
then put check marks for duplicate answers or ones who agree
with another. Then I take time to build the equation from
unifix cubes and count to see how close their estimates are.
I have been SO pleased to see their estimates get more and
more in the ballpark even when we are adding some pretty
large numbers.

When children are done, I still make a cover (title it
Student of the day and date it) and staple all inside (except
the student of the day, that one gets stapled up on our name
bulletin board and becomes an incredible flip-up record of
each child's progress in drawing, writing.

This is my student's favorite time of the day still....much
because they know what's expected, Oh,..I also have
instituted a 3-color rule to get some children to give me
more thoughtful coloring rather than 'slap-dash' work. But I
just keep seeing so many ways to enrich this as we go and the
children themselves have come up with some ideas that I use.
Some weeks I tell them we must make a subtraction problem and
then we think up ways to word it----like if we count the
metal 'eyes' on shoes, then to subtract, I have the child
lift one shoe off the ground. They LOVE to do this!

Doing equations this way every day has made teaching the
writing of an equation SO much easier!!!! Because I am
modeling/labeling the parts each day, it all makes such total
sense to them and is terribly meaningful because I'm always
adding or subtracting things that they really care about or
that are very concrete to them. And I love when children
come in each morning talking about what they will choose to
make their equation out of "if" they get chosen student of
the day (I put everyone's name in a basket and pull out one
each day and sometimes our room mascot, George (a chimpanzee
puppet) does tricky things like put his name in or one of our
other stuffed animal names....and we always put that name up
and I invite those that have time to try George's name or
whoever because it will make them feel like a kid and they
desperately want to be 'kids'....and they get to carry George
or whoever with them to take attendance to the office with me
cautioning them not to let George take them the 'wrong' way.

I LOVE the name activity and hearing what the rest of you do
with it....it's an incredible activity with so many ways to
incorporate learning.

Posts on this thread, including this one

• Name Activities, 11/21/03, by JEM.
• Re: Name Activities, 11/24/03, by Lisa Z.
• Re: Name Activities, 11/26/03, by deb.
• Re: Name Activities, 1/01/04, by Jacque/WA/K-1.
• Re: Last Name Activities, 2/01/04, by Marcia Goudie.
• Re: Making words and chunk with names, 2/05/04, by Kathi D/CA.