Xx is for x-ray

The sound of the letter Xx is tricky. Many words that start with the letter Xx, make the /z/ sound like in xylophone. That is an advanced sound and will be taught later in elementary school when they teach the spelling of the phonetic sound of /z/ like zoo, xylophone, and the "s" in nose. Preschool and kindergarten want to teach the sound /ks/ like in the end of fox or box, which is unique to the letter Xx.

I have a really neat book that has great pictures of x-rays of humans as well as machines and animals. It's called X-treme X-ray. We looked at the pictures and talked about them. Then they listened to a story of a girl who got a cast.

For art, we drew bones in our person. I tried showing how to just draw a long skinny oval or hot dog, but that seemed hard to do for some. The next day they wove yarn in a plate with slits around the side. They made the letter Xx while they crossed the yarn over each other. See if you can find the "X" in the maze.

I'm done with testing in each class. I will e-mail you each the results and suggestions on what skills that can be worked on over the summer, so their knowledge will stay fresh. Don't worry, it'll all come back when they go back to school and it will be easier to learn.

There's two more weeks left. The week coming up - we'll learn about the letter Yy and yo-yos as well as other games. The last week of school we'll review and talk about our dads.

Enjoy the photos:

My eXamples of the letter Xx

centers

Open Court cards to teach letter sounds

A new skill - weaving yearn through slits in a plate.  It was challenging, but achievable.

Helping out.

My daughter is learning how to be apart of the class, so that she's ready for next year.  Your children are really good, patient teachers!

This little boy LOVES to push my daughter in the swing.  He's such a sweety!

One for Ms. Esther!

ALL of my children were home, so they joined in our indoor games like Freeze Tag.  This is my middle son.

"I'm frozen!"

"Tag - you're it!"

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Mm is for me!

This week, we learned about the letter Mm and we talked about the theme of "Me, my, mine, myself". We sang songs about and talked about being special and unique.

For art, both classes laid down on butcher paper and either traced each other or were traced by me. Then they decorated their traced "Me" person. Next week when we do the letter Xx for x-ray, they'll add bones to their "Me" person.

The Tuesday class finished their piñata and took it home on Thursday. The M/W/F class already finished it, since they have an extra day. The Monday class dipped their foot into white paint and made a footprint on card stock. On Friday, when it was dry, they created a prehistoric creature using collage material.

We are continuing to test while the children play with the centers. We run out of time, because of this and don't always get to the circle time chart or music. I'm sure most of you will be very impressed with how far your child has come since August and February!

The pictures contain Friday's pictures from a week ago as well as this week's photos. Enjoy!

He's Spiderman!

She's carrying water from the water table to the sand box.

Our picture display of our featured birthday child

On Fridays, the children hear how letters fit together to make words and then they practice tracing and writing them.  They may not be able to tell you what the word is, but they are getting exposure to how letters work, which is one step toward success in kindergarten.  Next year, this will be shown during our phonics period in each class (not just for the Friday class).

Nice shady place for a hot day.

They are tracing each other.

We're all laughing, because his traced head looks huge!

I laid out all of the collage materials for them to choose from.

Punched paper, flower wooden beads, pistachio shells, ...

...colorful letter beads, multiple sized poof balls, googly eyes, cotton balls, ...

...buttons and markers with many colors

The Friday class glued the collage materials onto their painted foot print to make a dinosaur creature.

Birthday boy passing out what he brought to share

Helping to pass out his cupcakes

The birthday boy brought a Cars pull-string pinata.  I hung it up in the swing area.  We took turns pulling strings.  One string was attached to the opening.

He was the lucky one to pull the right string.

This is staged.  I got so caught up in the excitement of the pinata opening that I forgot to take pictures.  They were really good about "acting" for me ;).

Picking up the candy that I threw back on the ground to take the picture I missed.

It's so fun to color their person

She was very proud of her people.  She asked me to take a picture, which I gladly obliged to.

Love that smile!!

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