$Back To School Name Recognition and Graphing Preschool Lesson Plan$ Names are always fun to work with during the first week of preschool. We love the idea of reading Kevin Henkes' popular children's book, Chrysanthemum, which tells the story of a little girl mouse who loves her unusual name until she goes to school and encounters several mean-spirited classmates who start to make fun of her. While everything turns out well in the end, the book offers a great opportunity to discuss with your kiddos the importance of treating each other with respect and kindness, as well as celebrating each others' differences!

At one particular point in the story, a classmate announces that Chrysanthemum's name takes up thirteen letters, adding, "That's half the letters in the alphabet!" This offers a great jumping off point for your own name graphing math activity!

"How Many Letters in Your Name?" Graphing Activity

Start your preschoolers off with the data worksheet below, inviting them to fill in the "My Data" section - i.e. write their first name and determine how many letters are in it. Then, armed with name strips and scissors {see example below}, have your students cut the letters of their name apart and help you construct a class graph using a sheet of lined easel paper that displays the number of letters in each students' name. [NOTE: Glue tape might help move the process along a bit faster with less mess. Have your students line up their letters in front of you, swipe a bit of glue tape on the back of each, and then quickly place the letters on the name graph.)

Back To School Name Recognition and Graphing Preschool Lesson Plan

Once the graph is complete, work with your students to complete the "Class Data" section on the worksheet. This is great for working with the concepts of counting, greater than/less than, tally marks, and graphing!

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