Writing Their Own Name

Tips and Techniques for Teaching your Child to Write their own name!

Writing their own name - Drama Doodle

This week's Task is to Teach Miss Boo how to write her own name!
Some Background Details:
She's 3 years and 3 months old - She recognizes her Own name when I write it down - as well as Mom, Dad and Nat! She knows the letters from all the Letter Recognition activities I have done with her, and can sell her name when we ask her to!

Here are some of my ideas about how to 'inspire' Miss Boo to write her own name :

1)Tracing Letters :
 I have printed out some letter example tracing pages from homeschooling.com (I definitely recommend this website for ideas!!) Great stuff! I plan to sit down with Miss Boo, at our School-like Elmo desk - She loves pretending to work like Mommy and Daddy, start tracing the letters, and just leaving the pages for her on her desk! Many times during nap hours or before we wake her in the morning, she sits by the desk and draws or colors-in! The main focus is for her to get use to tracing and being creative in a more constructive manner!

2) Letter Collages :
Using Magazines/Newspapers/Or printing letters, we are going to cut out her letters and make a Collage with her name on it! You can also Outline the name - and paste the letters in the matching letters! This is also a wonderful activity to improve other Fine Motor Skills - cutting and pasting!

3) Practicing :
To help her get use to the writing skills, I plan on sitting down with her for a few minutes every day (as long as I have her full attention and concentration span) with lined paper, and a pen for each of us - I will write out her name, ask her to go-over (trace) them with her own pen - and when she feels ready, she can write it on her own! I believe in giving treats, or acknowledging achievement! We have a star chart - so I will add that to her 'chores-list' .

4) Painting Techniques : 
Using all different types of painting-styles (Finger, brush, sponge, household-objects, nature-things etc) make her more aware of her name! Paint around it, over it, with alphabetical magnets, etc! The more they see their name, the more they will comprehend and copy it!

5) Alphabet Cookies :
This might take a little longer - but Make Alphabet Cookies! Forget the Cookie-cutters and roll-the letters yourself! I'm not sure what recipe I will use yet, but I will post that when I get to this part! Bake their name in cookies and then decorate it! Fun!

6) Alphabet Clay:
Using a salt-dough recipe (will post it when I find it) spell out their name, pop it in the oven and decorate it as an Arts and Crafts Activity! This is a great keepsake, as well as an example to work from when they feel inspired to write on their own! Glue it up, or leave it on their school table!

7) Magic Letters :
Although this activity has more to do with Letter Recognition, it can be used to write and trace letters as well! Write the letters, or have your child write them, with white crayon on normal paper - using water-color paint have your child discover the magic letters! Then ask them to think of other words starting with the same letter!

That is all for now!
Will keep you informed about how the activities turned out and what new inventions we came up with!

Topic Tuesday - Letter Recognition

Letter Recognition

As soon as Children start to mumble a few phonics, we bombard them with Letters and Numbers and Colours! Sometimes we don't even know how overwhelmed they get - And when this happens they shut us out! So, instead of taking in the endless and amazing information we are throwing at them, they lose interest!
To keep the focused and make it more enjoyable, We work on different games that will help them learn all the things we want them to learn, but in a fun and interesting way!

1) Chalk!
Chalk might be the greatest gift! Go outside (Outside! Yay!) And Draw! Start off by just exploring with shapes and letters and pictures! This could go on for hours!
One of my favourite things to do is to Write out her name (or whichever word you are working on)

We then play a game of Tag-the-letter ... Run to I ... Skip to S ... Bounce to B ...

Now to make it more complicated I get her to run to letters following each other! She loves this - She calls it Isa's Hopscotch!

You can also do it with Upper and Lower Case Letters! Write them out, space them desperately and ask her to help find! As soon as you invent a game, and throw in words like explore or find, they love it! 

You can use this method for Number, Shapes and Colours too! 

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