Hands down, this has been the favorite name learning activity. H has asked to play with his "name cars" over and over. 

This activity is similar in nature to the name blocks - matching individual letters to the letters in a fully written name. Except this one uses cars (always a win). To start, find a small-ish box and draw "parking spot" lines and write a letter in each spot. 

Then, put tape on the top of matchbox cars and write a letter on each one to match the letters in your child's name. Let them drive the cars and park them in their spot! I made a ramp with the leftover flaps I cut off the box for H to drive cars from the table to the parking lot. We would make the letter sound as it was driving up and over the ramp and then name it as he parked it. Or I should said *I* made the letter sound and asked him to repeat it. We haven't mastered all the letter names and sounds yet!

​For more teaching and learning ideas, check out this page! 🌎

This is a great activity for hand-eye coordination and for practicing letter recognition and order for a name. 

To start, try to find a long duplo block with the same amount of pegs as letters in your child's name. I couldn't find one with 5, so I glued one extra onto a long 4-peg block. Then I wrote each letter of his name with sharpie under each peg. I chose different colored individual blocks and wrote on them the matching letters. If you don't want to "ruin" the blocks, I've seen this activity done by putting tape on the blocks and writing the letter on that.

Initially, I held the connected name pieces while he matched the individual blocks to the letters, but eventually he wanted to do it all by himself. We named the letters as he put them in his name. You could let them pick up random blocks and put them on their name, or have them look for the letters sequentially. 

​For more teaching and learning ideas, check out this page! 🌎

I think of all the ones I've done so far, this name activity probably required the least amount of prep. I got the editable file off of one of my favorite kid activity websites and once I inserted H's name, it generated several fun puzzles. 

​For more teaching and learning ideas, check out this page! 🌎

I am forever trying to figure out ways to trick H into doing crafts that also involve vehicles. 😅 
This one is fiddly to start, but super fun. I recommend using Crayola color wonder markers and paper unless you want your table colored by cars too. 🤪

I first did this activity to decorate a thank you card, but now that he's started "school," I've been having him practice letters, so this worked great for "tracing" those (lemonade and letters name-learning has diverted into learning the whole alphabet 😂).

To start, find a toy vehicle that is fairly tall with a tall back or front. I used a tractor and a hot wheels Lego delivery van. Then get a long piece of scotch tape and hold the marker up to the vehicle, uncapped, tip down and touching the paper. I tried on the sides, the front, and the back of a vehicle and on the back was preferred. It kind of varied on the vehicle too. Tape it fairly securely and let them drive! 🚙

Anything with a hammer has to be a fun learning activity, right?

You'll need to purchase a few supplies ahead of time for this activity: I got the wooden golf tees from Target and the kneeler pad from my local Dollar Tree.
After making sure of the kneeler pad's size, I started by printing H's name with a block letter font ("Happy Writing Outlines" from the same font pack I used for the Q-tip letter activity!) onto a large piece of cardstock. I used photoshop to create dots inside each letter for the tees, but sharpie-d circles would also work. I taped the name onto the kneeler pad and let H hammer the tees into each of the dots! He needed a little help "getting them started" but otherwise loved whacking them down.

I had way too much fun designing this one, but could be done MUCH simpler. I brought this activity in the car and H enjoyed that a lot!

Start by drawing a large rectangle on sturdy cardstock paper and drawing a line horizontally through the middle to create two skinnier rectangles. Write your child's name in large letters in both boxes. I chose to also do lines between the letters on the bottom name. Cut the whole thing out when you're done!

Then write letters on each of the ends of the clipping ends of the clothes pins and ta da! You're ready for learning time. I laminated mine and would recommend that if you're wanting to use it more than a couple times.

I personally used photoshop and the pages application to digitally create and then print his name instead of writing it Definitely over-the-top, but it was more precise and a great waste of my naptime! 🤪 

H is ready to switch to identifying individual letters of his name instead of viewing it as a whole entity. We started with this super fun search and find across the house. Very engaging and a perfect way to keep him inside on a particularly warm day. 🙃

I started by writing his name in huge letters (still only the first letter capitalized and the rest lowercase) on a big paper scrap I had and taping it onto the wall. You could use butcher paper or even individual sheets of paper for each letter. 

I let the kiddo loose and whenever he would find a post-it letter, I'd have him run back to the paper and he'd put the sticky note letter on the matching written letter. Meanwhile I'd be asking, "what letter did you find?" or "Can you find the last H?" 

We probably hid them all two or three times in a row. He LOVED it and was pretty good at naming the letters, especially since we put the name next to our kitchen table so he could see it during meals.