Unit 2 (Primary school, Class 2) – Names are more than just letters!

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A  Lesson plan

 

Key questions/lesson topics

Main activity

Resources

Lesson 1

All our names!

All children learn more about each other’s names (interactive approach).

A4 sheets of paper.

Lesson 2

How I got my name.

 

 

The class think about the reasons for giving a child a name.

Strips of paper with key sentences; a set of handouts.

Lessons 3 and 4

Every child has a story to tell.

The pupils share information about their lives. They make a life-sized picture of themselves.

Information about the children’s families (homework); one sheet of flip chart paper per child; markers and col­ours.

B  Background and educational objectives

Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child protects every child’s right to have a name. The second or family name indicates the child’s ties to the closest group around him or her. How­ever, the first name makes the child be­come an individual: a unique creature in this world.

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Children should be proud of their names, and they should know what their names mean, the hopes their names express and why their parents chose this name for them.

The teacher must take care when treating this topic. For all kinds of rea­sons, there may be children in class who do not live with their natural par­ents or who have lost their names when forced into migration or exile. The teacher will need empathy and sensitivity when approaching such children.

This unit, “Names are more than just letters!” connects to Unit 1 “I have a name – we have a school.” Refer­ences to the first unit should be made if children have already completed it.

Alternatively, Unit 2 may also be used as a stand-alone unit.

C  Key questions for reflection in children’s rights classes

Experiencing children’s rights

Getting to know children’s rights

Implementing children’s rights

Teacher

In what way have the principles of children’s rights been taken into consideration in the classroom and in the school community?

What do the children now know about children’s rights?

Learning how to take action outside of school: What have the pupils learned for their future lives?

School is part of our life; the class is a micro-community in its own right. Children become aware of their own identities by knowing all the other children’s names and by being called by their own names by everyone in the class.

The rights mentioned to the left are experienced in the classroom through this unit.

Articles 7, 8, 12, 13 (see appendix: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child).

The children participate in the decision of where their poster is to be hung up. Perhaps space needs to be provided, so this question may have to be discussed with other teachers, school assistants, or the head teacher.

Pupils

How did I experience children’s rights in class?

What have I learned about children’s rights?

What kind of action am I able to take now?

I have seen that all the other children and the teacher have taken notice of me. They have all listened to me, and now everyone knows my name. My name makes me special and unique, someone who is different from everyone else.

I know the names of all the other children in the class and what these names mean. I know something about their lives.

We have special rights as a child:

We have a name that no one can take away from us (Article 7).

As a child, I already have my own life story, a life that is different from what other children have experienced. This will always be a part of myself (Article 8).

I may have my own opinion and can say what I think, and all the other children may do so too (Articles 12,13).

When I meet someone on the playground or somewhere else, I will ask them their name and tell them mine.

D  Procedure

Lesson 1: All our names!

The teacher and pupils sit on chairs arranged in a circle. The children hold strips of paper with their first names written on them in bold writing. The teacher also has a card or a strip of paper with his or her first and second name written on it. Every-one says his or her name in turn. Now the pupils must pay close attention and learn the other chil­dren’s names, if they don’t already know them. This may be done with the help of different kinds of games, some of which are suitable even if some of the children already know each other:

  • The children give their own names and the names   of the children sitting to their left and right, “My name is …, and sitting to my left is … and … is sitting to my right.”
  • Identify some traits which some of your pupils have in common, for example the colour of their jeans or skirt, initials, eyeglasses, colour of their hair, etc., and make up a riddle: “X, Y and Z all have something in common. Who can tell me who it is?” This can be repeated a few times.
  • Collect all the cards with the names written on them. Each child draws one in turn without reading the name. They all show their cards. Who is able to bring order into this confusion by assigning the correct name to each child?
  • Boarding the bus: At random, a child begins with the following statement, “I am Anna, and I am getting on the bus.” The child next to her continues, “I am Sandra, and I am getting on the bus with Anna.” The child sitting next to Sandra carries on in the same manner, includ­ing all the preceding children, “I am Tom, and I am getting on the bus together with Anna and Sandra.” Keep to the order in which the children are sitting in the circle, as this will make it easier for them to remember the names. Con­tinue in this way until all the children are sitting on the bus. Take care not to embarrass a child who has forgotten a name, and let the children help each other.

The teacher concludes the lesson by conducting an instructional dialogue. The following questions serve as stimuli for the pupils:

  • Do I like my name and if so, why?
  • Sometimes names are reduced to nicknames or changed. If I have such a nickname, do I like or dislike my new name and why?
  • Nicknames in our family or amongst friends: What do they mean and where do they come from?
  • Sometimes it is important to have a name. What would things be like in school if we all had the same name or even had no name at all?

For the rest of the lesson, if time allows:

  • The expression, “My name is…” can be pre­sented in different languages and learned by the children; the task could be that each child learns the expression in two languages. (Exten­sion: children learn the question, “And what’s your name?”)
  • Children could design and create a particularly decorative name tag.

Lesson 2: How I got my name!

The teacher has prepared strips of paper on which he or she has written the following sentences (of course, any kind of variation – modification, omis­sion or addition of more statements – is possible):

It is important to have a name.
My name – this is me.
We recognize ourselves and each other by our names.
Our name says something about who we are (gender, language, place of origin, etc.).
By having a name, a child becomes a member of a state.
By choosing a certain name, parents often express certain wishes, hopes and feelings.

 

The teacher reads each statement to the class, each time putting the strip of paper down and asking the children to put the statement written on it into their own words and to discuss its meaning.

Then he or she hands out worksheets, which the children are to fill in as homework (see the re­sources below). The teacher goes through the questions with the class to ensure that every child understands:

  • When was I born?
  • At what time?
  • Which day of the week was it?
  • What was the weather like?
  • Where was I born?
  • Who was present when I was born?
  • What was my size and what was my birth weight?
  • Why was I given this particular name?
  • What does my name mean?
  • Where can my name be found, what does my name sound like in other languages?

Lessons 3 and 4:

Every child has a story to tell!

The children sit in a circle. They have the sheet of paper that they filled out for homework with them and tell each other about the things they discussed with their parents. The teacher encourages them to explore some questions in depth.

For example, he or she creates a list on the board, flipchart or projector that shows the time of day or the name of the day that each child in the class was born. Perhaps an interesting pattern will emerge? (The Internet is a useful tool in order to find the weekdays on which the children were born.)

Of course, it would be particularly interesting if some children could give their parents’ reasons for giving them their names and be able to explain what their names mean. To explain the meaning of names, the teacher could bring a dictionary of names or use the Internet to find their meanings (the latter would work particularly well for non-European names).

Following the class discussion, the children are given the task of individually creating a poster about themselves that includes all the written in­formation they have gathered about themselves. Depending on the level of their writing skills, the teacher may have to assist some children in class.

As an alternative, the children could draw a life-sized picture of themselves. This may be done in the following way: a child lies down on a large sheet of paper that has been spread out on the floor, choosing a pose, for example running or standing with outstretched arms. Another child traces the outline of this figure. The resulting shape is then cut out and coloured in with water­colour or poster paint. Speech bubbles could also be cut out and attached to the figure to show the children introducing themselves “My name is…”, and/or a second sheet of paper with the personal details about the child can be stuck to the figure.

The children spend the fourth lesson completing these posters.

Finally, the posters or figures are presented and the children discuss how and where they will ex­hibit the posters in the school building. The teacher supports them in making their decision.

 

Resourses: worksheet for pupils

My name has its own history – what I would like to find out

When was I born?

At what time?

Which day of the week was I born?

What was the weather like?

Where was I born?

Who was present when I was born?

What was my size and what was my birth weight?

Why was I given this particular name?

What does my name mean?

Where can my name be found, what does my name sound like in other languages?
Unit 1 (Primary school, Class 1) - I have a name – we have a school
Unit 3 (Primary school, class 3) - We are wizards!
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