Name Recognition/Learning

I'm baaaaaaaack...finally settled in from the exhaustion of Disneyland last week!  I'll share all about that soon!

At the beginning of this year, B was so NOT interested in learning his letters or writing his name.  Even now, after working on letters for months, he has trouble remembering some of the ones we learned in the beginning...he just wasn't into it then. 

Now, he is 100% on board with learning EVERYTHING...especially how to write his name.  The past few weeks, on top of learning letters, I have done an activity involving his name.  I wanted to get him interested in it without forcing him to sit down and write.  He really enjoyed the name activities...I think it was because no "work" (aka writing) was involved.

These are all EASY little activities that you can throw together with things you already have at home.

1.  Stamps

2.  Rocket ship...This was an activity not only involving his name, but shapes and following directions (B had to put his squares in the same color order as my example...We wrote his name at the end.), as well as counting out a certain number of stars. 

This is from a few weeks ago and he had just started writing the letter B by himself...so cute.

3.  Foam letter stickers...This is when we were learning the letter N and discussing how it is part of his name.  I laid out a pile of letter stickers and he had to search to find each letter of his name and then put it all together at the bottom.

So, yesterday I decided that B needed to start trying to actually WRITE his name.  I wrote his name in a light color on card stock and stuck it inside a page protector.  **This is a SUPER cheap and easy way to get your kids (at home or school) to practice ANYTHING.  Put it in a page protector and give them dry erase markers and used dryer sheets (works perfect as an eraser!).** You're welcome!

B was a little wary at first about writing his name, but after I guided him through it the 1st & 2nd time, he was ready to go!  

Here is the picture of his 3rd and 4th time (1st & 2nd time ALONE):

Remember, this is the FIRST time he has EVER sat down to write his entire name...

Pretty impressive, right?!

Then THIS happened this morning...  

He wanted to write a "letter" to his grandparents and I told him to write his name on it, so that they could see what a great job he is doing.  (I did not expect that he would do anything past the B.)

His first reaction was, "I can't...there are no other letters."  So I talked him through it (showed him where to begin each letter and new line), but never touched his hand or the marker!

AMAZING.  I almost lost it, y'all.  I'm one proud nanny!!! Not only is it his whole name and he did it ALONE (no tracing, just listening and looking over at his practice sheet from yesterday), but we started this YESTERDAY and he is not even 4 yet!  Plus, look at the improvement on that B!