For new readers of the blog, this post is an explanation of the "names" Ms. Harmony uses when she writes about the school happenings.
The school friends, and even Ms. Harmony, have a symbol called a "letter link" that corresponds to each person. Simply, a letter link (from High Scope curriculum) matches both the letter and phonemic sound of the first letter in the child's name. Having a letter link and using them frequently when we talk to our friends at school provide the students many many opportunities to hear matching beginning sounds in words, which is an important pre-literacy skill to have. It also provides them opportunities to see a bolded letter with a symbol, which helps the children learn to read each other's names and remember words that start with specific letters.
When Ms. Harmony blogs about the school friends, she refers to them as "Friend Bread," or "Friend Sandwich," based on the child's letter link. (In older blog posts, they might simply be named "Friend B" or "Friend S," but there are now more children who have the same beginning letter so Ms. Harmony uses the letter link rather than just the letter.) This preserves the child's anonymity to the public, but allows the parents to identify their own child's words and work.
Ms. Harmony has two children that are also mentioned in blog posts. To differentiate her own personal children from the school friends, her daughters are named Toddler "K" and Baby "E."
