Preschoolers are naturally curious about their own name which is why it is often one of the first things that they learn to write and is one of the first steps in early preschool literacy. Using a laminated name tag for your preschooler can be  a great tool to help preschoolers learn to write their own name and practice early letter recognition.

What You Need

A Traceable or Preschool Friendly Font – Be sure and choose a font that teaches your preschooler to write using the style that he will learn in your local school when he goes to kindergarten or one that you will use as part of a homeschool curriculum. This site has a great summary of what to look for in a preschool font. There are several great tracing fonts available for purchase (these will allow you to download a trial which will work fine as long as you

aren’t planning on using lower case letters) or there are several free fonts available.

Thick Paper – Cardstock works well but regular printer paper is fine but won’t be as sturdy.

A laminator – You can purchase a home laminator if you plan to do a lot of laminating. They come in handy for severalpreschool projects and are fairly affordable. If that isn’t in your budget at the moment, you can go to nearly any office supply store or educational store and laminate a preschool name tag for under a dollar.

What To Do

Adult Preparation – Type your preschoolers name in a large font size using an appropriate tracing font. For younger children, I prefer unlined traceable letters. For older preschoolers I like using a font that shows where each letter falls on the line and includes arrows so the preschooler can begin to understand the correct way to write each letter because this is an important and often neglected skill that kids need to be prepared for kindergarten.

Print your preschoolers name on thick paper or cardstock and trim it down to a rectangular shape.

Laminate your preschoolers name tag, either at home or by taking it to an office supply store.

Trim the lamination so that it leave only a thin border around the name tag.

How to Use a Laminated Preschool Name Tag

A laminated preschool name tag can be used in many fun preschool activities to help teach preschoolers to recognize and write their name.

• Have your preschooler use dry erase markers to trace his name.
• Use Wikki Stix (You’ll want to cut them into smaller pieces) and have your preschooler lay them over the top of his name
• Make play dough snakes and use the laminated name tag as a guide for your preschooler to make his name out of play dough
• Make several other laminated names (for other members of your family, friends in your child’s playgroup or preschool co-op, or neighbors) and have your preschooler pick which name belongs to him.
• Post the preschool name tag along with other laminated names around the room and have your preschooler find his own name.
• Have your preschooler use his finger to trace his name.

Do you have other ideas? We’d love to hear them. Share them with us in the comments.