Name crafts are ideal activities for any point in the school year. Whether it’s the first few days of school and you’re getting to know your class, day-to-day letter recognition activities or it’s the end of the school year and you’re looking to create a cute, personalized keepsake for your students to take home.
There are loads of amazing crafts out there. We’ve searched the internet for ideas and compiled a list including 30 of the most fun name activities around.
1. DIY Name Bracelets
This cute and easy craft uses letter beads to create personalized bracelets. Students can make one for themselves or for a friend or family member. The craft easily adapts so you could make necklaces with letter beads and longer pieces of elastic.
Learn More: A Girl and a Glue Gun
2. Hide and Seek Name Activity
This activity is super easy to set up and the video has tips for how to make the task seem less intimidating to more nervous learners. This is a great activity for letter and name recognition in younger learners and you can increase the challenge by adding incorrect letters into the mix.
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3. Rainbow Tiles Name Recognition
Recognition activities are a great way to build students’ confidence with letters and with learning and writing their names. This fun and colorful activity requires minimal setup and materials. Check out our list of brilliant books about names.
Learn More: Stay at Home Educator
4. Name Gems Artwork
@preschoolactivities is one of the best, most creative Pre-K pages on Instagram. This simple, but effective activity is great for working on younger students’ fine motor skills, and will create a visually stunning display for your classroom wall.
Learn More: Preschool Activities
5. Rollercoaster Names Art
This awesome name art is super simple to demonstrate and explain to students and you can spend time observing how different each student’s design turns out in the end, despite all having the same instructions. There is room to discuss spacing between lines, chosen colors, and coloring or shading techniques.
Learn More: Jones Design Co
6. Stained Glass Name Design
This striking artwork is simple for students to create. All they will need is a ruler and some colored markers. Older students could create this stained glass artwork by cutting out their name from black card stock and then filling the spaces with colored tissue paper, glued on.
Learn More: Teach Kids Art
7. All About Me Name Icebreaker Art
This art activity is ideal for the first week of school. Students can pick questions to answer about themselves (the number of questions they pick will depend on how many letters are in their name), and they can draw the answers to these questions in the letter of their name. At the end of the week, it can be a fun task to go around the class and try to guess some of the questions and the answers.
Learn More: My Creative Life
8. Sensory Name Recognition
This simple sensory activity is a great way to introduce younger learners to their names and the letters in them. This activity is toddler-approved as they will definitely enjoy the tactile, messy elements involved.
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9. Phonics Blossom Tree Name Artwork
Letter learning activities are a staple in any classroom with younger students. This simple and pretty activity is a nice way to display learning that students have been doing, and can let them show off that they can spell their name!
Learn More: Mas & Pas
10. Balloon Names
This super cute name craft is perfect for a back-to-school activity or as a keepsake memento to take home. Just take and print off photos of each student pretending to hold balloons, and then you are good to go!
Learn More: Preschool Activities
11. Personalized Star Ornament
This personalized star ornament is a festive favorite and is super easy to make and add to as your students decide. All that’s really required are some glue, lollipop sticks, foam letters, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners.
Learn More: Powerful Mothering
12. Nature Hunt Natural Materials Name Craft
This activity is definitely toddler-approved as it encourages outdoor exploration and play. Students can pick a variety of raw, natural materials and then use these to spell out their names. Don’t forget to take pictures of their finished work for your learning logs. Explore more nature crafts ideas for kids here.
Learn More: We Know Stuff
13. Name Reflection Artwork
This cool effect is achieved quite easily using water-based markers, water, and a paintbrush. This effect is great for name art but can also be great to teach about symmetry.
Learn More: My Creative Life
14. French Fry Name Recognition
This wonderful free editable activity is perfect for students working with name recognition. Students can collect their pack of ‘fries’ and then spell out their names using the pack as a guide.
Learn More: Homeschool 4 Me
15. Magnetic Letter Sensory Bin Search
This sensory bin letter hunt with magnetic fridge letters is perfect for play-led approaches to learning. Students can search for the letters in their own name then use them to spell them out at the end of the activity. Check out our favorite DIY sensory table ideas.
Learn More: Powerful Mothering
16. Scrabble Names Class Wall Display
This classroom name puzzle display is perfect for a ‘Welcome to Our Class’ display. Students can gather the letters they need for their name, then they can each take turns to add their name in, making sure to link it up with another name.
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17. Magazine Letters Name Artwork
If you are looking for an activity to help you recycle some old magazines or papers in your class, then this is perfect. Students can look through and cut out letters to spell their names. An additional challenge would be to only use lower or uppercase letters.
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18. Lucky Charm Names
This activity is superb for honing fine motor skills in younger years. Write out their name with glue then your students can place the charms along the glue line to make each letter. This activity is great for St. Patrick’s Day.
Learn More: Up and Away in Pre K
19. Pointillism Name Artwork
This is a super cute and colorful name craft. The pointillism style of painting is easy to explain and for students to re-create. All that you will need are a few colors of paint and some Q-tip cotton swabs.
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20. Yarn Wrapped DIY Name
These easy DIY yarn-wrapped letters are an easy and calming craft for students to pass their time with. They can take this craft one letter at a time and make their designs as intricate as they like. This craft is a perfect brain break to do during downtime between lessons. Find out more yarn activities and crafts ideas here.
Learn More: Kids Craftroom
21. Tissue Paper Name
Students can create their very own tactile name art with this activity. For younger students, you can print a template of their name for them to use, or older students could draw their own with a black marker. Then just fill in using glue and tissue paper!
Learn More: A Learning Moment
22. Button Mosaic Name Craft
This button mosaic name craft is perfect for older, art-loving students. The intricate work requires focus and patience from students but will pay off as they create a beautiful multi-textured name art piece.
Learn More: American Crafts Studio
23. Personalized DIY Photo Frames
These frames are super easy and only require a few easy-to-find art supplies. These are perfect for back-to-school activities and can hang in your classroom all year as a cute display, before being taken home by your students at the end of the year as a memento.
Learn More: Preschool Activities
24. Name Tile Ornaments
These hanging scrabble tile ornaments are a great craft for older students, who can handle the responsibility of using tools. They make great personal projects or can be made to sell for school fundraising events.
Learn More: Jo’s 2nd Act
25. Macaroni Names
This super easy and fun activity requires glue and macaroni for students to spell their names with. Students can follow the glue letters you write and this can help them to learn letter recognition and also letter formation skills.
Learn More: Taylo Teach
26. Lift-the-Flap Name Book
This clever and simple activity encourages students to recognize the letters in their own name, and then link these letters to other sounds using the initial letter sounds. Students can either draw their own pictures for each sound or they can use stickers or printed images.
Learn More: Make and Takes
27. Name Scrapbook Craft Project
Take inspiration from this incredible craft and get older students to create a scrapbook using the letters of their names to shape each page. Students can decide what they’d like to put on each page or you could designate themes.
Learn More: Crafty Wrafty
28. Make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate
These simple, but effective homemade scrabble tiles are a great name craft for students. You can use crafting clay or even salt dough. These tiles can then be put on some string or wire or could be displayed another way. The possibilities are endless!
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29. Rainbow Spiral Name Artwork
This colorful rainbow name craft is simple to create and only requires some different colored markers. Students can repeat their first name, or they could choose to write their full name. They can repeat color selections with each repetition of their name, or change it up.
Learn More: A Blog From the Pond
30. Tape Resist Name Artwork
Not only does this name artwork look super cool, but it is also so satisfying for students when they peel the tape off to reveal their name or design! This rainbow name craft is effective and will stand out on any wall display.
Learn More: Happy Hooligans
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