Developing Skills:
• gross motor
• listening
• language
Materials
• paper
• glue sticks
• child-size chair for each child
• tape
• two copies of a photograph of each child
• plastic container
• recorded music
Set Up and Prepare
In Advance:
Glue the photographs of each child on separate sheets of paper. Write each child’s name below the photograph so that there are two labeled photographs per child.
Directions
ACTIVITY
Set up the chairs in a line in an open area of the classroom. Tape a photograph of each child to the front of each chair. Explain to the group that they will play a game so they can learn their new friends’ names.
Place the other photographs in a container and invite each child to choose one. Suggest that children form a line beside the chairs. Explain that they will march around the chairs while music plays. When the music stops they will then find and sit down in the chair that has the same picture as the one they are holding.
After they find their matching chairs, ask each child to take a turn saying the name of the classmate whose picture they’re holding. Gather the pictures back into the container and invite children to choose another name and start the game again.
Add some variation to the game by changing the movements children can do while circling. Suggest they wiggle, jump, hop, skip, or tip toe. Invite them to think of other ways to move around the chairs as they play the game.
Remember: Make several copies of the photographs of each child. These can be used for classroom charts and labels, or to display next to their work in the various areas of the classroom.
Lesson Extensions
Take-Home Activity
Name-Learning Book. Make a book to send home that has the pictures and names of each of the children and teachers in the class. Leave space where children can write or draw something about each person. Encourage parents to read the books with their child so they can learn their classmate’s names and share information about their new friends at school.
Curriculum Connection: LITERACY
Reading Our Names. Use the name cards during small group time to help children learn to identify names.
Books:
A Bad Case of the Stripes
by David Shannon
(Scholastic, 1998; $17)
Jump Up
by Dan Zanes
(Little, Brown & Company, 2005; $17)
Otto Goes to School
by Todd Par
(Megan Tingley Books, 2005; $10)
