Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

The first day of school, I always do this activity with the kids in the afternoon. A full day is just a little bit too long for most of them, so this takes their mind off of school and gives me an opportunity to just observe their different personalities and skills. I also get a feel for those who need immediate help with letter recognition or their own name recognition. I just dump all the letters on the back table and the kids have to find their own letters for their names. I'm running low on letters, so I always count all the letters from my class list and count out all the letters, so I know there will be enough. Makes a cute bulletin board to start the year off.

Venn Diagrams

Here is an activity we did with Venn Diagrams and getting to know each other in the class. I randomly selected students to be partners with each other. I gave them their name on red paper and also their name cut into squares. The students had to compare the letters in their names. If they had a match, they glued them on top of each other in the center. If they did not match, they glued them on their own side. They still talk about the similarities in their names with their partner. We have gotten some new kids in class, so we will do this again using our last names.