DIY Name Tile Game

This is a great way to introduce name recognition in your classroom at the beginning of the year or introduce it halfway through the year once you have successfully accomplished the alphabet.  Letter recognition is really important in early childhood education because it is the foundation to reading, writing, and spoken language. Think about it, children needs to know letters to be able to make works. They need to now letters for written formation and understanding and they have to be able to know that letter and sound to speak it.

I started off by making my monthly trip to the Target Dollar section and of course the Dollar Tree (where I found these). I picked up several sheets of foam letter punch outs. They come in the primary colors: blue, red, and yellow. I decided to go with 2 blue sheets because all of our language games are color coded blue in our classroom, but honestly any color is fine.

Once, I purchased the letter foam tiles, I punched them out and made sure I had enough of each letter for every child’s name in my class. Then, I went on my computer and in Microsoft PowerPoint, I created squares and typed in their names. After printing and laminating each child’s name, I hole punched them all and put them onto a ring for easy hanging in our language center.

Next, I took each letter tile that I needed for each name and hot glued a small piece of magnet to the back side. I did this because the student place them on a small rectangle cookie sheet (hint: you can also find these at the Dollar Tree) so they can stick in their spot without moving.

Not only is it a wonderful tool to do as independent play, but the students begin to recognize their own name as well as the other names of children in their classroom.

If you have older students, a great way to bump of the level is to print out names with letter missing and they have to fill the tiles in. Our class is not quite there yet, but I might have to think about reprinting names to include both first and last names!

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