Too Sweet for Words Family Name Practice

This morning we decided to work on family names. I'm so in love with this activity.

It's sweet to see Beckett learning to pronounce the name of our family members. He gets excited about photos of family members he loves and recognizes.

Plus, working with these simple cards is jam packed with great literacy skills. I created this activity so Beckett could start learning to spell his name as well as Mom & Dad. I threw in the others for good measure. ;) During this activity we also get to work on:

Letter names & sounds

Beginning sounds

Family Name Pronuniations

Reading from left to right

Recognizing that Letters strung together form a Word

Using photos to identify words

For the first time, Beckett ran his finger under a word (Dad) and pronounced it accordingly. I could have died watching his cute chubby finger make progress in the simple skills that will one day lead to him reading independently.

Of course, he got confused too. At one point, he ran his car accross the mat, then read, "car" instead of Nana. I'm cool with that. It was a fun morning.

These cards were super easy to make. I made the boxes 1 inch wide by 1.25 inches high to specifically fit the letter beads we have on hand. Then, I used Canva.com to make the photo grids. To me, it's way easier than sizing them directly on the document.

What do you think? Have you tried a similar activity? What worked for you in learning to spell your kiddo's name? If you've got a great Tot School activity to share, please feel free to link up!

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