Name recognition is one of the most important skills a child gains from being in preschool. Learning to identify a name can be difficult for a preschooler, so I try to offer my preschoolers plenty of activities to help them out. Today, I’m sharing with you a basic water color name recognition activity.
Each week, I try to offer my preschoolers a new name recognition activity in addition to the usual stand-bys. I got the idea for water color names from Teach Preschool. Deborah used hot glue to write to children’s names on the paper, creating a textural element to each piece.
Join me regularly via subscribing to Stay At Home Educator by email, Facebook, Twitter @StayAtHomeEdu, and Pinterest. This post may contain Amazon affiliate links.
Materials needed for water color names
- heavy duty paper (You can use real watercolor paper
or premium cardstock
is an ok substitute).
- permanent markers
- watercolors (My preschoolers loves these liquid watercolor paints
, but these taditional watercolors
work great, too).
The name recognition activity
I have to be honest, using hot glue like Teach Preschool didn’t work out for me. The paper warped too much and I have a terrible hand at pulling the hot glue gun
The students quickly got to work painting their names.
Some of the children chose to trace
The prep work to put together this activity took only a few minutes and the children loved how it was a mix of name recognition and art.
I am Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home mama of five! I am the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught range of levels, including preschool and college, and a little bit of just about everything in between. Right now, my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction
a name activity I do with my preschoolers is:
write the name on a white paper with a white wax crayon. when the children paint with watercolors, their name appear. to them it’s magic.
at the beginning of the year, I do this activity. I use a template of a t-shirt I found on MailBox, write their name, let them watercolor it, cut it out, then I hang them in hallway on a string with mini clothes pins. this activity was found again on Mailbox and the optional title is: Preschool Fits Me to a T !
What fun ideas! I also like to do the white crayon activity. The first day of school is perfect for that one!
I love watercolor activities. I will use this but will have them paint their names one day with black glue and the next day have them watercolor over their black glue names.