Falling in LOVE with Names!

   Wow, these past few days, I have seen so much growth with my little one and have been reminded of just how much of a sponge kids are at the preschool age!! AND how much of a positive influence and impact I have as a parent!

   I really don’t mean to brag but- wow! This little girl sure is starting off on the right foot when it comes to her Preschool/Kindergarten Readiness skills! She can correctly identify about 75% of the letters in the alphabet (mostly uppercase though), she can spell & write her name, she can rote count to 25, count up to 15 objects, and identify her numbers up to 12. Her patterning and graphing skills are impressive too!  All of this and she is just turning 4 years old next month!!

   I GUESS it DOES help that I am a preschool teacher huh? Every day I find teachable moments with her and I roll with them. Parenting and teaching an eager little sponge is SO much fun!!!

   So on Sunday, I took some time while she was napping to create a few activities for her, centered around names.

   I wrote everyone in the family’s name (including the pets) on a sentence strip. I used a heart punch to make several little hearts and wrote the letters of our names on each one.

   She worked on identifying and matching the letters of our names. By the way, this Was a GREAT activity for her to do while I was starting dinner!! =)

   The other day I saw her going through my desk drawers and she used up half of my envelopes! She was “Writing” her friends’ names on them and distributing them all around the floor!

   So I created a fun sorting activity for her. I wrote our names on envelopes, including our four pets (8 in total), took some heart and cupcake notepads that I found in one of my zillion teacher boxes, and I wrote our names on several sheets, several different times.

   I pulled out this cool little mailbox that my mom had bought her for Christmas and told her that she had to fill the envelopes up and put them in the mailbox when she was done.

   When I showed her the envelopes, she was able to read off all the names!!! I was shocked because I just showed her everyone’s name in print yesterday!! She must have been really paying attention!! (It was that sponge magic at its best!)

   As you can clearly see from the photos, she was very serious and focused on sorting and filling her envelopes! She REALLY enjoyed this activity and when daddy came home from work, she was so excited to show him all the envelopes and read off the names on each one!

   She asked to do other family members names as well, so I will be working on those envelopes and names later tonight. I might even put a little math twist on this too! My brain always seems to be in constant motion..... 

   I think I might extend these activities to the classroom next week. She enjoyed them so much and I am sure my preschool munchkins will enjoy them as well.

   And now, here is a Love Letters ABC Matching Game that I am posting tonight on TPT!  Click on the picture to get your copy today!

Enjoy!!