NEWSLETTER
First Names and the First Letter of our Name!
Happy New Year - let's focus on our names and the letters in our name! Over the next few weeks our large and small group manipulative work will focus on names, letters and fine motor work. We began by identifying our names and the first letter of our name. Then we moved to fine motor manipulative work to explore the names and letters in as many ways as possible.
First, the children found their name on the sentence strips and took a seat at the table. We then held up and verbally identified each first letter in their names. When they heard/saw their first letter they pointed to it on their name strip and then matched it up. This part of the activity required visual and auditory recognition of the correct letter. It was also very exciting to have the same first letters as a friend or have other's first letters in their name!
After their name cards and first letters were identified, we gave the children clothespins with the letters of their name on them. The goal was to match each letter to the clip with the same letter on it. We watched to see how many fingers they used to open and close the clothespin (you only need 2 - using more shows us they need more "strength" from other fingers to manipulate it), and if they "clipped" the correct letter. When they found a match, they had to place the clip directly above the letter (a focused placement that requires them to hold the card with their "helping hand" correctly). They worked at their own pace to do this, and each child was able to find success with some help from us. This part of the activity involved fine motor practice, hand-eye coordination and visual recognition of the same letter/shape of the letter. Side note...clothespins are GREAT fine motor tools. We use them in our classroom for many different activities.
This success led to more letters to manipulate and match. Each child was given their own bin of letters and tasked to find the specific letters in their name and put them under the card. This task required them to differentiate between their name's letters and all of the other letters in the alphabet. The children were SO excited to play with the letters and spell out their names with them. They then continued to explore the remaining letters in any way that they wanted to. We heard children identifying similar letters, sharing letters a friend was looking for and identifying letters out loud as they placed them on the board. This exploratory play part of the experience was rich with conversation and active engagement.
In both tasks, the children used their fine motor skills to manipulate the clothespins and letters and practiced letter and name recognition as they worked with the materials. Some children extended the experience to make their "own words," spell the names of people in their family or just work with the letters in different ways on the magnetic boards. We observed the extensions and will incorporate them into our letter work in the next few weeks!