DIY Name Building Activity

Now that my son is starting to recognize letters with exposure from the alphabet board, I wanted to create an activity where he could see the letters in his first name. I came up with this simple name building activity. I saved a piece of cardboard that was folded in a bed sheet set I bought a while ago and it worked out perfectly! (See how it pays to upcycle!) The top of the cardboard was bent upward slightly which was great for holding up the letters. I gathered the letters in his name from the Melissa & Doug magnetic letter box I had. I traced the letters with a marker to make them stand out on top of a yellow sheet of construction paper and taped it to the cardboard. The result was a fun letter matching/name building activity.

I ended up removing the white paper because it seemed to make the letters slip. In the above photo, I mixed up the letters and my son built his name. He grasped the concept very quickly and was so proud of himself when he completed the activity.

There is another simple way to set up this activity. Since the letters are magnetic and I have an easel, I taped the paper up on the easel and put the letters on it. My son enjoyed building his name this way too! This can be done on anything magnetic, like a refrigerator, if you don't have an easel. See the picture below:

The box of magnetic letters I purchased at TJ Maxx came in very handy with so many different learning activities. This was my sons first experience working with the letters in his name. An extension to this activity is to have my son build his first, middle, and last name. 

-Deborah