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Word Walls and The Name Game Each day we have one person who is our helper and we focus onher name. When everyone has had a turn, we start another round.I find it easiest to go in alphabetical order by first names. I write the students names on sentence strips, using one colorfor boys, and another for girls.First round: We reveal one name each day, beginning with a cheer:?Gimme a B (B), Gimme an i (i), Gimme an l (l), Gimme another l(l), Gimme a y (y). What?s that spell? (Billy). One more time!(Billy). Then I ask if anyone ?notices? anything about Billy?s name andwe look for letters in common with other names, or count lettersand look for other names with the same number of letters. Thenwe take a good look at the student, discussing colors ofclothing, so each child can draw a picture of the helper. Iwrite the helper?s name on the board and encourage everyone totry to write that person?s name and then draw a picture of thehelper. The helper gets to take home the pictures drawn byothers, his is put up on the bulletin board with the name cardI?ve made. 2nd Round: The self-portraits are put into a class book and thename cards are transferred to an alphabet word wall. Each day weread the alphabet and names, then take the helper?s name off tocheer and ?notice? letters about this name and others. We formthe helper?s name in magnetic letters, scramble them up and taketurns putting them in the right order. 3rd Round: When we read the alphabet, we say the sounds inaddition to the letters and names. This time we cheer, writethe letters in the helper?s name on the board and then count howmany of those letters are in the names on the word wall. Thenwe talk about which letter has the most, least, etc. We havealso added another name cheer: ?Bryan, Bryan, that?s his name.It starts with B, it ends with n, hooray, Bryan! We stillscramble the name with magnetic letters. At some point we begin to add sight words to the names on thewall, usually starting with go and we. In December, or after wecome back from Christmas, we take the names off the word walland put them in a pocket chart for the kids to use duringcenters. We continue to add sight words the rest of the year,reading the alphabet, and saying the sounds and words each day. Here are additional name ideas; some I?ve tried, some I haven?t.*Count the syllables.*Write the names like a rainbow.*Name poems from the website Korky?s Kool rhyme machine (http://www.literacyhour.co.uk/learning_activities/rhyme/rhyme.html)*Think of words that begin the same as the name.*Make up tongue twisters.*Fill out an interview sheet.*Mystery person (hangman type game where you draw blanks for theletters and the kids guess letters until they know the name.* Use the letters in the name and look for smaller words. *Cut up name puzzles to keep in a literacy center.*Change the initial consonant and play with the word (Sue, Bue,Lue, etc.).*Another name cheer: No matter what I do or say,My name will always be the same,It starts with_____It ends with ____Now count to 3 and say my name,1,2,3,_______.

These children have been taught from a very young age that their "grades" matter more than the actual purpose of the assignment -- just like "subjects" trump true learning.

In nursery school, math is called cooking, building or drawing. Science is called gardening, exploring or playing on the yard (finding bugs and figuring out what they do is a specialty).