What to do with name plates?

Okay, so my classroom is ALMOST complete. I just need to create a few more labels and miscellaneous things to put up before meet the teacher on Monday night. I am so excited for Monday and already cannot sleep! I just cannot wait to meet my new kiddos!

I am making yet ANOTHER trip to Walmart... I am honestly getting sick of this store! :) I was so excited last week when I found chevron duct tape. Duct tape literally makes my classroom go round. I love it for keeping the desks in a straight line, keeping the students at a distance from each other when lining up,  and of course at our meeting area. Bad news this year.... NO TAPE ON THE FLOOR. I am so bummed, but I am sure I will manage. 

I have been going back and forth with name plates and cannot make up my mind about what to do! Last year I started off with cute polka dot name plates and about two months in my lovely 4th graders had destroyed them. Since I am very picky about how their desk looks it drove me nuts to see the tape peeling off and dirty! A few months into school I switched to file folders on the front of their desks with a name tag. I LOVED this! But with the layout of my desks this year it will not work.

On Friday I met with another ELD teacher at my school and she was explaining to me that part of the AZELLA is verbal communication and one of the things students struggle with is using complete sentences to answer a question. 

I used this lovely piece of information to design my own name plates. At the top of the name plate I put, hello, my name is ____. We will be practicing using complete sentences throughout the year to answer questions so I thought this would be a great daily refresher. I made it in three different colors. I am hoping to use the three different colors to help me ability group.