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,_______.
Terry Elliott on 13 Jul 09So some thoughts on how to affect change in a timely, and yet, deliberate fashion. * Know why you are changing... and know what you are giving up by making this change. Every change creates winners and losers, so be sure to think through what you gain and what you lose (thanks to Neil Postman for that framework.) which leads to... * Always ask "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?" Do it for two reasons - one, because if you can't live with that consequence, don't do what you planned, but two, because the process of thinking this through will help you (and your team) mitigate the problems and you won't be as surprised when the thing you didn't think of comes up. * Research like crazy. Who has tried what you are doing? Who has tried something close to what you're doing? Who is talking about it? Who is writing about it? Who says the idea is already crazy? There aren't many truly new ideas in education, so figure out the history of your idea and learn from who has come before you. * Get lots of opinions - Come up with a smart, sensible, honest way to explain your idea and then listen. Listen a lot. Listen to the folks who don't like the idea, and ask them why. * Be honest - Don't oversell, don't overpromise, and don't pretend that the idea is perfect. * Build consensus - If only a few people are on-board with the idea, it won't work. But consensus doesn't mean taking something from everyone and sticking it onto the original idea until what you have is the worst of committee-based decisions. It means listening for the truths in what other people are telling you and being willing to make substantive change when it makes sense. * Know when to move forward. Don't let ideas die in committee because the team gets hung up on the final 5% of an idea. * Set realistic expectations for initial success, and then set up a plan to get there. If it's a tech idea -- get the tech right. (Nothing worse than getting everyone excited about a n
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