What was the First Gift
you ever received?
It was..............
YOUR NAME!
Your name was specially chosen for you.
Do you know the story of HOW your beautiful name was chosen for you?
Well, now we want you to go home and ask your family and caregivers and loved ones to tell you the story of how your very special name was chosen for you.
Ask to hear the Story
Listen Carefully
Write your story
Add a Baby Picture if you have one
Or Draw a picture of You when you were a baby
Bring your Story Poster to School
Share your special Story of Your Name
Then Posters will be part of a special
Bulletin Board Display to...
CELEBRATE YOUR NAMES!
This is how our beautiful lesson begins.
What comes next is special Family/Caregiver Time,
when some students are hearing the story for the first time, about how their name was chosen for them.
Then the Listening & Speaking skills are abundant!
Retelling and Writing
the story that they have heard.
The Share Session in class, is one of the most profound ways to bond with your students and to have them bond with each other.
Learning the history, the stories, the languages and countries of origin, the faiths, the personal meanings, the historical meanings and most of all...
How each student pronounces their
very
special
NAME.
We practice pronunciations.
We also discuss how some names come from other languages, with some different sounds, and it may take us some practice to get it just right.
But, to please be patient with us, because we want to say your name the same way that YOU do.
So, if we are not quite right, please help us say it correctly.
Ask parents to help you with pronunciation when you meet them. Sometimes, actually many times a student has not wanted to point out a mispronunciation, and I and the class have been saying it wrong, because they are so polite and considerate. We want them to know it is alright to correct us, and help us.
Parents and Caregivers often have a little trick to help with pronunciation. Then, we always have a class discussion to teach and correct ourselves, and to get it right.
The very first connection to a student, I believe,
is to let them feel
how important it is to you...
to say their name,
the way They say it.
It shows respect and honor and how special they are to you.
When a student has a name that is a first for me, I always let them know how happy I am to have that name for the first time.
We also discuss how we help others to learn the correct pronunciation as well. Whether it is a Substitute, a student from another class, another Teacher, or Parent, we politely say our friend's name correctly. It does help too, when the student themselves are not always the "correctors". This actually happens very naturally when we experience this lesson. Students understand that our names are an honor, and we want to show our respect and help others, too, to get it right.
After this lesson, one of the most common things you will hear me say in class is...
What is the most important WORD that you WRITE every day?
You guessed it...
it's YOUR NAME.
So, that should be the NEATEST
most proudly written word that you write.
No rushing, because you write it so often.
You need to show honor and respect for your name as well.
You need to write it proudly.
Each time.
So, here is how we work on this beautiful Caring Classroom Activity.
We start out with the question about the first gift that you received.
Then, the poster page is sent home with the instructions page.
A wonderful Teacher asked me if these pages were editable for her Spanish speaking families. Adaptations were added to provide Spanish versions and an Editable format, so that text boxes may be over laid to change the text to meet your classroom needs.
Share the sweet stories and the adorable baby pictures, photos and drawings.
I promise you, this day will be memorable for you and your class.
You may develop private jokes from these experiences that mean something special to your caring students, because they are sharing such personal stories.
Last year one of my firstie girls, could not help her spontaneous response as she uttered,
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW,
at how cute one of the boy's baby picture was.
It became a connection between 2 students that had had no connection before.
It meant a lot to him, that immediate reaction, that he didn't expect.
You know that little smile in the corner of their mouth, that they are trying so hard not to leak out.
Yeah, he had that.
Then comes the Bulletin Board Display. We had our on the side of our door, not on the cork-board bulletin board that gets changed monthly.
That way it could stay up all year.
It was Proudly displayed for Back to School Night, Conferences, Class Parties and every other day when we could find students soaking up Baby Pictures and personal stories.
Everyone in our school knew...
that those are our Special Stories...
and these are our Special Names...
and we are so Proud of them.
