The Name Game

The name game allows children to recognize, celebrate, and identify the meaning of one's own name. I choose this activity because it kind of hits close to home. My name is pretty unique and growing up I think I hated that it was. I could never find a key chain or magnet with my name. It's not a good feeling to never see my name on anything while there were a ton of Michelle's, Sarah's, and Karen's. This activity encourages children to like their names and to remind them that it's special and they were given it to them for a reason. Now my name isn't all that special, I wasn't named after a family member. But it was a name my mom liked and I like it now to. Plus this activity can help children respect each others names. I still have people make fun of my name, and yes, they are all adults. I also have people mispronounce my name or call me something else because all they see is the CH and TY. I get called Christy a lot. Children go through this as well and this activity can help others to use the right names

This activity helps to promote a sense of self. "Multicultural education is important for young children because they deserve to be in programs where it is safe for them to be who they are." (York, pg 128) Learning of one's name and meaning of it is allowing the child to be them. Nothing's more "them" then the tie they have to their own name. Not only does this activity promote that but it's very multicultural since names are basically the same. They are all different and have an origin most likely. "Children have a right to feel proud of themselves, to learn to be courageous, and to not feel like victim." (York, pg 128) Children should be proud of their names because it's something special to them. They should never feel ashamed to have he name they were given to them by their parents. This activity can help children to discover and understand the importance of not only their name but everyone else's.

The themes for this activity include families, friends, our class, and communication.

Recognize, appreciate, and respect the uniqueness, beauty, value and contribution of each child.
Discussing names is a good way to do this. Many people have unique names. Every child should be proud of their name. This activity gives the children that window of time to show everyone what their names means. It can give them a sense of identity and pride.

Foster positive self-esteem and a positive self-concept in children. 
As I stated above it's a good way to help children accept and like their names and to have others respect and like them too.

Promote respect towards others.
This activity is can help to inform the other children how to pronounce names. That way they can understand how to say the names rather than do it wrong then maybe make fun of the name. Learning about how the names came to be can also inform the children which can also help with avoiding teasing.

Increase children's ability to interact, talk and play with people who are different from them.
This activity may help with encourage the children to talk to one another if they're curious about each others names and how they got them and maybe the names of other family members.

This activity is a "Goal 1: Develop a positive, knowledgeable, and confident self-identify within a cultural context" activity.  It covers all four goals as well however. Goal one: Recognize one's own family, appreciate one's own cultural heritage and recognize and identify the meaning of one's own name. Goal two: Accept others who a different from oneself, show respect for all people, and pronounce the names of one's classmates correctly. Goal three: Compare respectful and disrespectful behaviors and resist name calling and teasing. Goal four: Practice standing up for oneself and practice standing up for another person.

The materials for this activity are strips of poster boards 6 x 24 inches, glue, a felt tip marker, sparkly or shiny collage materials, and books on the meaning of names. Use marker to write the child's name on a poster board strip. At circle time, hold the strips up, one of the time and see if they recognize his or her name. Together with the children help them write the meaning of their name on the board. This is where a book on name meanings would come in handy.  Look up the child's name and identify the meaning. Afterwards give them another poster board strip and ask them if they would like to write their name in glue and add glitter to it to make a festive name tag. Once dry let them decorate it however they want to.

The Name Jar

Unhei is a little girl from Korea who has moved to an American school. She already knows people will have trouble pronouncing her name so she chooses not to use it or tell her classmate and instead says she will pick a new name from a jar. Many kids write out suggestions for her new name. But someone finds out what her name is and it's special meaning and after that one day her name jar just disappears. Unhei soon learns that she shouldn't change her name for others and that it's better to accept it and everyone will do the same.

I chose this story because it tells children that it's okay to have a name that's different. You were given that name and it is special to you and it shouldn't be changed just for others.

Mommy Doesn't Know My Name

Hannah's mom likes to call her a lot of nicknames/pet names. And each time she imagines what it's like as whatever her mother calls her. But Hannah just like being Hannah. She spends her whole day trying to get her mom to call her Hannah.

I chose this this story because it's a way of showing that nicknames and pet names are fun and cute but nothing's better than being called you're own name. It shows children that you should be proud of your name and firmly state it to the world.

As an extension for this activity, bringing in parents and grandparents to talk about the child's name and origins would be a neat thing. They can also talk about the family name as well and where it came from. They can also talk about how people in their culture are given names and the reasons why.

I think this activity can help a lot in a preschool classroom filled with diversity. Besides appearance, our names is another big, cultural difference. Names are important and should be treated as such. Children need to know everyone's name matters to them and should respect them. This is a good way to teach them that even if you can pronounce a name that does make it weird and funny. We can use this activity to encourage children to accept and like their own names. I believe it would be very helpful to focus on names around the beginning of the year. That way the children will know how to say everyone's name and make it easier for interaction between them. Part of me wishes I had this activity in class, maybe I would love my name more than I do now.

References:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/name-jar

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/mommy-doesnt-know-my-name

Goals for Anti-Bias Curriculum handout

Roots & Wings, Stacy York

Book Analysis - The Story of Ping

The Story About Ping

Written by Marjorie Flack. Illustrated by Kurt Wiese.

Year of original publication: 1933.

This is a story about a little yellow duckling that didn't want to be last back on to his boat and get a spanking. So instead Ping hides and because of this his boat leaves him and he's not lost. He gets in to trouble but luckily finds his way out of it all and soon enough he sees his home again. This time he is still last to get to the boat but he takes the spanking anyway because he just wants to be back home.

The only characters in this story other than Ping the duck are humans and are all of Chinese decent. For the most part I believe the characters were depicted as culturally correct as in not in a negative stereotypical way.

In a way the story is both stereotypical and true to the culture. Shown on a few pages are fishing boats. Fishing boats are a part of the some Asian lifestyles and ways of occupation. Of course, this is something we associate Chinese culture with. So at first thought one would think of fishing and small boats with Asians. In the story, Ping has a huge family, I believe that's something stereotypical about the the Chinese culture - to have a big family. Also for the fact that Ping is the only duck with a name. It's a Chinese name and they made Ping the only yellow duck and a stereotypical and sometimes racist term is to call Asian's "yellow". Another stereotypical thing is that at one point, a little boy catches Ping and his family wants to eat him. Duck is one of the food we think about Chinese restaurants having. The little boy's mother tells him that she will cook the duck with rice and it's quite stereotypical to say that all Asian eat rice or always eat rice.

The owner of the boat has the power to call his ducks to him and get them back on his boat. As are the other humans in this story, like the little boy who catches Ping. Then his parents do as well as they tell the boy they are going to have the duck for dinner and take Ping and keep him under a basket for later.

The author Marjorie Flack was White and did not fit the cultural group she was representing in in her book. Kurt Wiese was the illustrator and he was born in Germany but spent a great deal of time in Japan. His art was highly influenced by Asian culture which was why a lot of his art is Asian themed.

The humans were drawn as drawn in a very stereotypical way, with very, very squint-y and small eyes, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing.  The language used is mostly in English. But there is one part where the master of the boat sings "La-la-la-la-la-la-lei" and I'm not sure if that's just the words the author decided to use or because she thought it would fit with a Chinese character.

To be honest I don't feel as if this book was that bad. I don't think I'd read it to my students unless I talked about the story afterwards. So if I decided to use it in a lesson I would have an activity to explain everything afterwards. But basically I don't think I would use this book, in my opinion it's just a 'fun' book. You don't learn much from it so I would have no reason to use it.