Animated Step-by-Steps®: The Name Game

Monday, August 26, 2019

The Name Game

The Name Game is a popular song, written and sung by Shirley Ellis (c1964). Over the years, it has been rerecorded several times and has appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials and movies. This is obviously a song with a 'long shelf life'.

The Name Game is now a literacy-focused Animated Step-by-Step!

The Basic Rules: (adapted from Wikipedia)

Using the name Shirley as an example, the song follows this pattern:

Shirley, Shirley, bo-birley,

Bonana-fanna fo-firley

Fee fi mo-mirley

Shirley!

A verse can be created for any name with stress on the first syllable, with X as the name and Y as the name without the first consonant sound (if it begins with a consonant), as follows:

(X), (X), bo-b (Y)

Bonana-fanna fo-f (Y)

Fee fi mo-m (Y)

(X)!

If the name starts with a b, f, or m, that sound simply is not repeated.

For example: Billy becomes "Billy Billy bo-illy";

Fred becomes "bonana fanna fo-red"; Marsha becomes "fee fi mo-arsha"

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The song gives no indication of what to do with names where the stress falls on a syllable after the first, like Renee, Maria, or Lebron.

Can be Personalized

This resource must be personalized, i.e., you must replace the current place holder photos with photos of your students. Photo faces must have transparent backgrounds. To replace a photo … right click (control click) on the existing photo face … a dropdown menu will appear … select Change Picture then navigate to where you have stored your student photo faces. Presto … a new photo face appears without disrupting your animation sequence.

Launch Page:

After two examples are provided, a launch page/slide appears. This page allows students to choose a friend to sing about.

The pen tool (command p when in presentation mode) can be used to mark off students already chosen. Press esc on the keyboard to exit pen tool mode.

As a Literacy Activity:

When a student is chosen on the launch page, PowerPoint jumps to a slide/page revealing the target child's photo face. The pen tool is then used to write the child's name in the red framed boxes. The pen tool can also be used to delineate the remaining kernel when the initial letter/sound is removed.