Star Name Activities
Star names is a great way to get 5 year olds interested in learning about letters and words by using his/her own name. There are many different multi-level activities and extensions that you can use with star names. Below is the basic run through of how I use star names in my literacy block:
· Put all students names on index cards and put them in a bag or magic hat.
· Pull out a star student’s name for the day.
· Announce that this child is the “star student of the day.”
· Use the 3 sheets (“interview”, “things we notice about”, “words that start like”) one at a time to get to know the child and learn about the letters in his/her name.
· Begin by writing his/her name at the top of the “interview” sheet. Modeling good writing and saying aloud the letters that you are writing.
· In the beginning you can ask the interview questions, once the students have learned the interview questions, the star student can call on different students to ask each question.
· Record the star student’s responses on the “interview” sheet, again modeling and sounding out aloud. For example : I have two brothers. Model a capital I, then space, /h/ /a/ /v/ etc.
· Then move on to the “things we notice about” sheet. I like to have them comment on 2 or 3 things they notice about the star student’s appearance. For example, eye color or has earrings or not. But I don’t record this on the sheet. The only thing I record on this sheet is the things they notice about the letters in the star student’s name. For example, “Fred.” Students may say: He has 4 letters, he has a “d” in his name, he has the same letter as me (even though the student may not know the name of the letter)-then write these comments on the sheet, again modeling good writing and sounding out.
· Then move on to the “Words that start like” sheet. In the beginning, depending on your students academic abilities, this may be difficult. Students should be able to come up with words that have the same beginning sound as the star student. Record correct answers on this sheet.
· Extensions:
Write the child’s name on a sentence strip. Cut apart each of the letter in his/her name. Ask another student to come up and put the letters back in order by looking at the index card or the 3 sheets with the student’s name on it.
· Have the students clap out the syllables in the name.
· Display each of the student’s index name cards in a pocket chart for the week and ask students to compare the names. (Fred has 4 letters, Michael has 7, Gina has 2 vowels in her name and Ana does too.)
· Once you have begun a new week, take last week’s star student index cards and the cut up sentence strips of the letters in their names and put each child’s 2 name cards in a Ziploc bag. Make it into a literacy station where students have to match up the letters and the student’s name.
Once you have done the literacy activities with the star student’s name, pass out a sheet of 8 ½ x 11 paper to each student. Have them write their name at the top of the paper and copy the star student’s name at the bottom of the paper. (This ensures that they have plenty of practice with letters other than those in their name) Ask students to draw a picture of the star student (reinforcing what the student really looks like, no purple hair). Ask the students to draw the star student with some of their family or doing one of their favorite things from the interview questions. Eventually, students will move from drawing to writing a beginning sound by their pictures, to beginning and ending sounds, to writing a phonetic sentence about the star student- “ he liks tu rid hz bik” Ask students if they know what sound their pictures begin with and encourage them to write the letters next to each picture. Collect the papers from everyone, putting the star student’s paper on top and make into a book. You can put these books in your library for the students to look at and read or you can send them home as a cute keepsake. It is amazing to hold onto them for a while and put them in your library and see the difference between everyone’s work for the first star student all the way to the last! Have fun!