Name Games with Faith

Today we took some time to play with names. Faith played match with her name on index cards and we practiced the correct order of the letters. 

Then we played with our name on the lids. She matched her letter lids up with the circles and letters I had drawn. Then I mixed them up and asked her if it looked right? She knew right away it wasn't right and told me, "I am an 'F'!" 

I told her, "Yes! You're name does start with an 'F'!" Then I put the 'F' in the right place and we continued to unscramble them, call them by name and sound them out until we got them in the right order. 

We sang our family name song. One that I started back when it was just 'MOM', 'DAD' and 'JOY'. With each sibling we've added their names and we sing it often. They have all learned how to spell 'MOM', 'DAD' and their own name as well as the names of their siblings because of it. Our song goes like this...

"M-O-M spells MOM, D-A-D spells DAD,

 J-O-Y spells JOY and (say it fast...) J-O-S-H-U-A spells JOSHUA! 

F-A-I-T-H, FAITH, S-A-M-U-E-L, SAMUEL. 

We are the Adams Family, (shout...) A-D-A-M-S!" 

So simple, but it's been such a great way for Joy and Joshua and now Faith to learn how to spell their first and last names. 

So after singing through our family name song a few times, we played a fun little game I learned from www.teachmama.blogspot.com called Letter Connect. To play Letter Connect, you simply make connections between the letters in two names at a time, drawing lines to connect the matching letters. When there isn't a match, you make a big 'x' alongside the names. But we found matches in all of our names.

We started with the names of our immediate family. So she drew a line from the 'A' in 'FAITH' to the 'A' in 'JOSHUA' and said, "The A's are the same! And the H's too!" I said, "You're right! Hmmmm. Can you tell me whose name I wrote next and connect the letters?" I wrote 'JOY'.

She said I wrote 'JOY'. Then she drew a line from the 'O' in 'JOSHUA' to the 'O' in 'JOY' and said, "The 'O' is the same!" Then she continued to connect the 'J's in both and was excited that there was another match. I added 'DADDY' to the list next, followed by 'MOMMY', and 'SAMUEL' and Fatih connected letters and we talked about the sounds as she went. When we finished with our immediate family, she decided he wanted to do grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends. Our lists went on and on, we erased our board and wrote new names over and over again, and we got to see how everyones names were connected by letters.

It is so exciting for me, getting to be there when each of the kids learns something new or makes a new connection and figures something out. I LOVE it! It's one of the most rewarding parts of my day!  :)