Today I am going to tell about the many different ways we use name cards in my classroom. At the beginning of the school year I took a close-up photo of each child's face. I used these photos to make name placecards for the children for snack time. We serve snack to the whole group at a time. While I lead our second line time each day, my assistant sets up snack on our tables, placing a name card at each spot. The snack helper may choose who they sit with, but otherwise, the children are all mixed up each day to facilitate friendships and interactions with a variety of other children. Since I don't post the children's photos on the blog, I'll describe the name placecards. They are about 5 inches wide and 4 inches tall. They have a large photo of the child with the child's first name printed under the photo. Since I have 60 different children throughout the week, I use a 4X6 index card file box with ABC dividers to organize these alphabetically. That way we can easily pull out the cards we need for each session and leave the rest in the box.
Each child in my classroom has a "cubby" to hold their unfinished work and a change of clothing. They each have a name card on the front of their cubby. The name labels include first and last names with the first name written at the top and the last name directly below. When I introduce a sound to a child with the sandpaper letters, I often give them an "eyeball" stick (craft stick with a google eye glued to the end) and have them check the names on the cubbies to see if they can find that sound (letter) and point to it with the eyeball.
Inside their cubbies the children also have namecards with their first and last name. I just used the name cards you can buy at any teacher supply store and laminated them. The cubby namecards are used to "save" their work or to reserve a turn for an activity. For example, right now I have watercolor painting out in the classroom. Only one child may do this work at a time and I have it set up on a stationary table. When children would like to be "next" to paint, they get their namecard from their cubby and place it on the table next to the work. If there is already a stack of namecards, they place theirs on the bottom of the stack.
In addition to the above, I have a second set of namecards for the children. These are also written on purchased name cards from a teacher supply store and have each child's first and last name. During the second semester, I use these on the line to "dismiss" children to wash their hands for snack or to line up for recess, etc. I instruct the children to keep silent and hold up one name card at a time. When a child sees their name, they get up and follow the direction that has been given.
Another favorite group activity using these name cards is the "Name Game". First, we sit silently on line and I hold up one card at a time. When a child sees their card, they stand up then sit back down. Once I have gone through everyone's card, we all stand up on the line. I hold the stack of name cards in my hands and we walk around the line as we chant: "Name, name, whose name? Name, name, whose name? Round and round and round we go. Into the middle one name goes." At that point I "drop" a name card into the middle of the "circle". The child whose name it is grabs the card and returns to their place in the line. We continue until all the names are picked up. They LOVE this game!!