Tot School - Letters X & Y

I think I should subtitle this post: The Slacker Edition. :) We are SO close to the end of the school year, and have had such gorgeous weather the last week or 2 (the last couple days excluded), we've been doing school & Z has been learning, but we haven't been as 'strict' with school as I sometimes think we should be. :) However, I did want to share an exciting blessing & the fun school-y things we did accomplish! :)

First, I want to share the most exciting thing that happened in the last two weeks - a box showed up at my door unexpectedly! A friend who has taught for years mentioned to me a circle time board that she had seen recently, and as we were talking about it, I realized that I had seen the same board in the classroom where my SIL teaches, and LOVED it! I was VERY pleasantly surprised when a box arrived last week containing the very circle time kit we had talked about! Here is a picture of it all put together:

I am so excited to use this with Zachary! I just finished putting together the whole thing this morning, but already Z has been asking me each day, "What day is it?" so he can slide the star to the right day. :) He was very excited to see it all put together! :) I'm thankful that God used our friend to bless us with this great learning tool! :) It is from Lakeshore Learning, if you love it, too, you can find a link to it here.

We studied the letters X and Y the last two weeks - the first week was letter X. We did an X collage, with small strips of paper that we made X's with on our X. Apparently the only things that start with X are xylophone and x-ray and I didn't know what to put on the collage, so we just made X's. This was more difficult than I thought & Z & I were both in bad moods, so I ended up doing most of it myself, with Z telling me where to place the X's. Here it is:

WE dot painted an X page - X is for Xylophone (from makinglearningfun.com), and Z loved doing this one. :)



We used our Wikki Stix to make an X on our Playdough Mat.

We also played Potato Heads - here is Mr. Silly, Zachary's creation. :)

We also colored! Here's Natalie's favorite part of coloring - taking the crayons ALL out of the box:

She did color, more than usual, so that was exciting. :)

Here is her finished page of coloring (the black spot is from Z's dot painting from last week):

Zachary colored, too, and he made the Grouch, Bert, and Ernie all the correct colors, so that was fun. :)

Then we studied the letter Y! We made a Yarn collage together. Here's Z asking me to put the glue on:

Here's Z putting the glue on himself:

Natalie watching:

Zachary putting some yarn in the glue:

Our finished Yarn Y:

We played with our Rocket Numbers again, and Z did a great job! These are from Musings of Me's space unit.

(notice that my (green) belly made it into this next shot - whoops! Missed that in the editing process!) :)

We did 'free painting' this week - Z was 'stamping' with a foam circle brush at this point. He kept saying something like, "Stamp!" :)

Natalie painted too:



And Zachary finished with a brush:

We played with playdough on the porch, on an old tablecloth so the playdough wouldn't fall through the cracks. Natalie took out the playdough & put it back in the container most of the time. :)


Zachary loves cutting his playdough with a butter knife.

He used 'worms' to make a big and small Y on his Playdough mat!


Although his little Y was kind of funny looking....

In conclusion, here is a cute smile from Zachary! :) He is growing so fast! I am looking forward to the break after we finish letter Z this week, but he isn't sure what to think. He keeps asking me what we're going to do when Z is done! :) Of course, we won't stop learning this summer, but we will be spending lots of time at camp, and playing outside...until baby brother arrives sometime in late July!

And here's a 'first' for Natalie - her first set of pigtails!!! I learned on this day that she does not have the patience for Mommy to put in pigtails. :) I basically had to wrestle her head still while the rest of her was buckled in her car seat to accomplish this look. At least it lasted all morning. :)

Well, to see what everyone else is doing for tot school this week, head on over to 1+1+1=1! Next week, I'll be sharing about our adventures with the letter Z (I'll try to be a little better about taking pictures this week, but who knows, we have a busy week planned - I think we'll be out every morning till Friday...maybe letter Z will go through next week too...). Anyhow, in my next post (the last for the year!) I hope to share a little about what I have planned for Zachary's fall curriculum. He'll be turning 4 in December, so we'll be doing more as far as 'preschool' type activities this fall, and I'm looking forward to that - I think he's ready for a little more of a challenge! :) At least I don't have to wonder what we're doing for circle time! :)