Name Writing Activities for Kindergarten
We focus a lot on teaching kindergarteners the alphabet and numbers, but there is one other important skill they must master right away…writing their names! Some kindergarteners come to school having never spelled or written their name before, so it’s crucial to fit in as much practice with these skills as possible! These name writing activities for kindergarten will help you keep students motivated and engaged as they practice their names.
9 Hands-On Name Writing Activities
Over the years, I have come up with tons of hands-on centers and activities to practice identifying their names, ordering the letters in their names, and writing their names correctly (uppercase at the beginning and the rest lowercase). Read on for helpful tips and ideas to freshen up name writing practice in your classroom! These activities will be perfect to incorporate into your back-to-school plans!
1. Sensory Bins
The first step in name writing practice is to be able to identify the letters in their name. Sensory bins can be a great way to practice this! Just add letter cards, tiles, or magnets to a bin filled with sensory material and let your students find the letters they need to spell their names. This could even just be an extension of a sensory bin center! After students have finished an alphabet sensory bin activity, invite them to use the letter cards to spell their names.
2. Sensory Bags
You can have your students practice writing their names using sensory bags. Simply fill large, gallon zipper baggies with a variety of materials, such as colored rice, shaving cream, hair gel, glitter, cereal, etc. They’ll have a blast forming their names in the baggie of fun. Plus, there’s no mess to clean up!
3. Fine Motor Name Building
Get your students ready to write their names with pencil by helping them improve their hand strength and coordination! There are many fine motor tools that you can use to help students get ready to write their names with pencil. Some of my favorites are Wikki Stix, Unifix cubes, and play dough. Their coordination and fine motor skills will be put to use as they manipulate the objects into the letters of their name. As they work to build their names with these hand-strengthening tools, they will also be exploring letter formation. Your kinesthetic learners will love this!
4. Stickers
Stickers can help your students improve their pincer grasp as they practice spelling their names. The process of peeling letter stickers off the sheet and placing them on the paper really puts fine motor skills to the test. However, kindergarteners love stickers so much they won’t even realize they’re hard at work!
5. Crayon Box Name Craft
Crafts are another great way to help students improve their fine motor skills so they’re ready to write their names. This crayon box name craft gives students the chance to put the letters of their name in order.
You can have the letters already printed on this craft or you can have students write the letters. Either way, the final product will look adorable on a back-to-school bulletin board! Students will be eager to find their crayon box on the wall, which is a great opportunity for name identification practice.
6. Name Caterpillar
One of my favorite name writing projects are these name caterpillars! Your students will be so excited to have their names hanging up in the hallway or classroom. You can also keep the letter pieces in baggies and have them practice over and over again!
To set up this project, give each student enough construction paper circles and have them write the letters of their name on each circle, or you can have the letters already printed as shown above. Have your students spell out their name with the letters, then add a face using a different colored circle, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners for the antennae.
7. Sidewalk Chalk
As your students transition to writing their names, you can start with non-traditional writing tools to get students excited about name writing practice! Sidewalk chalk is always a favorite! Fresh air and a change of scenery is always refreshing for everyone. You could even let students “paint” their names on the sidewalk with a cup of water and a paintbrush. This is a low-prep, high-engagement activity with no clean-up required!
8. Name Painting
Students also love to use watercolors or Kwik Stix paint sticks to practice their names. Students love to practice painting their names on a blank piece of paper. However, you could also give each student a paper with an outline of their name to fill in with paint.
9. Make a Name Book
What better way to practice name writing than creating a book all about your own name?!ย Name practice booksย are a fun way to build students’ confidence as they learn to write their names. Some of the activities I’ve shared in this post are included in my printable name-writing book.
If you’d like to create name practice books for your students, you can save a lot of time with an editable template! With my Printable Name Practice Books, you can make a class set in minutes! Just add your class list into the editable PDF and all of your books are made!
Each book has multiple name writing activities, including:
- Tracing
- Writing
- Counting Letters
- Building with blocks
- Building with stickers
- Painting
Printable Name Practice and More!
I’ve created a bundle of back to school activities with printable resources that will help your students practice their names at the beginning of the year. In this low-prep bundle you’ll find the crayon box name craft as well as the editable name practice book mentioned in this post. There are also a variety of centers and printables that can help students with letter identification and tracing. These are helpful activities for students who are working on writing their names!
Just click below to take a closer look at everything included in this Back to School Activity Bundle.
Back to School Activity Bundle
Save These Name Writing Activities for Kindergarten
You can save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite kindergarten board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these ideas when you’re looking for fun name writing activities.
