The beginning of the year in kindergarten always brings a wide range of alphabet knowledge. One of the ways I like to start the year off is a week of name activities. Most students come in knowing their names. Many of them know how to write their name in some way or the other. Starting the year off with name activities is a way to boost confidence in students and begin learning how letters and sounds work together.

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Name Activities

There are so many fun name books and activities to start the year off with.

Once I get my class list, I write the name of each student on a sentence strip. I like to hand write it so students can see their name written in marker. I write the consonants in blue and the vowels in red. Eventually, we will begin to talk about consonants and vowels. It’s a great way to build curiosity with my class. I always have a student ask why some letters are red and some are blue.

I usually laminate their names so they can use them for various activities in class.

Syllable Count

Learning how to break words into syllables is an important foundational skill for reading. Each day, I choose a few students and we clap out their names in syllables. Each day we do clap the syllables of different students until everyone has had a turn. After we determine the number of syllables in a name, we put it in under the correct syllable heading on our pocket chart.

How Many Letters in Your Name

After reading the book Chrysanthemum, we count the number of letters in our name and graph it. First, I start off by giving each student a strip of paper with boxes on it (1-inch graph paper works great).

Students write one letter of their name in each box.

Next, students cut their names apart.

Last, they glue each letter to our class chart.

Name Writing Practice

In addition to whole-group activities, we practice writing our names a lot! I like to put practice pages into pocket pages so my students can practice their names over and over without wasting too much paper.

If you would like this name pack for your students, fill out the form below. It’s an autofill, editable pack that works great for those who need to practice writing their name.