The Story of My Name (Flip)

Use a Microsoft Flip activity to explore students' names and their unique stories.
Ages 5-10 / 15
min Activity
Self-Awareness
Perspective Taking
Inclusivity
Social Studies

Objectives

  • ‍Use Microsoft Flip to share about the meaning and importance of their names
  • ‍Practice empathy and respectful communication by listening to and appreciating their classmates' stories

Supporting Research

Culturally-responsive teaching practices, such as respecting students’ names and the connection to their histories, identities, and cultures, help create a more inclusive, welcoming classroom environment in which all students feel validated and welcomed. Furthermore, creating this sense of belonging has a powerful impact on students’ academic and social development. Educators should encourage students to practice self-awareness as they share about their names, and perspective taking and inclusivity as they seek to learn more about their peers’ identities from their stories.

To learn more about these skills, and how they promote students’ healthy growth and the development of empathy, please check out our Empathy Framework.

Materials

Activity Partners

No items found.

Instructions

  1. Introduce the activity to students. You might say: “Everyone has a name with a special story and meaning. Today, we’ll be sharing our stories with each other. When we listen to our classmates' stories, let's be kind and respectful, and celebrate what makes us each unique.”
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  2. Follow the instructions in the educator note above to create a group on Microsoft Flip, and add your students to the group. 

    Then, post the activity topic in your group, which invites students to record a video sharing about their name and what it means to them. Then, students will respond to their peers’ videos by recording a video or typing a comment. 
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  3. Afterwards, guide students to reflect on their experience by asking the following questions:
    • How did you feel when you shared about your name?
    • What did you discover about your classmates from the videos that they shared?
    • Were there any similarities between your stories, or any interesting differences that you noticed?
    • What can we learn about someone from their name?
    • How do our names make us feel connected to our families, cultures, or backgrounds?

🎬 Flip Activity Topic

If students in both classes have individual devices (e.g., mobile phone, tablet, laptop, etc.)...

Use a platform such as Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams which allows you to screen-share during a video call. 
One educator should set up the Kahoot! game and share the code with students in both classes by following this tutorial about using Kahoot! in a remote learning environment, and share their screen so everyone can follow along.

If students in either class don’t have individual devices...

Follow the same instructions above, with one educator starting the game and sharing their screen so both classes can follow along.  
Instead of students joining the game to answer the questions, they can hold up their fingers, call out their answer, or use a paper template to indicate their response.

If you prefer not using Kahoot!...

Use this document (Spanish version) to prompt students.