My Name is...

 I decided the easiest introduction for letters and their sounds would be to use the letters in Jackson's very own name!  Kids LOVE their name.  If you think about it...it's one think that they truly "own" at their age.  A few months before Jax turned 2, I simply tracing out his name using magnetic letters.  Not only did this simple activity encourage letter recognition, but it reinforced his colors.  Check out the video...

  Simple and VERY effective!

And of course Nixon has one now!

Jackson has a very important job at dinner time!  It is his decision where everyone gets to sit.  I created place cards for our family using folded sentence strips  

Within a few days, he could recognize everyone's name and the letter it began with. Check out the video!

And here are a few more ideas to get your little learner excited about names...

Jackson has many books about him!  "J is for Jackson" was made with love by his Nana!  The 2 litter bottle is filled with rice, cut out pictures of our family and their names!  Great way to put your old, boxed up pictures to a good use!  Other fun books are plastic photo books from Dollar General with pictures of Jackson's trips to Texas (BIG thanks to his Mema for making those).  I've even made the same type of photo book of him standing by all his favorite trucks!

 This is an activity using play dough "snakes" and laying them out on top of the letters in his name!

And our newest Letters in Our Name Game....Jackson's Letter Lists!  

This hangs in our kitchen on the sliding doors.  It's the same concept as "Word Walls" in today's classrooms.

I wrote out the letters in his name on computer paper and

just hang up different food items that BEGIN with that letter/sound.  After about 2 months of trash collecting, we FINALLY found a label for the letter "n"!  Thank you Willy Wonka for your Nerd Boxes!  Jax and I were so excited!  Each day we add something that HE has started to find on food items/labels!  I just gladly tear off a piece of tape and the rest is up to him!  

Happy Learning!