Y Day: Yodeling, Yellow Yarn Yaks, and Yelling

Today we learned about the letter Y. After I introduced the Y and told the boys what sound it makes, I taught them how to yodel. Nathan did a really good job of it, but Lincoln was too shy to give it a try. Oh well. To demonstrate yodeling, I showed a clip from The Sound of Music of the Lonely Goatherd song. I love the Sound of Music, so any excuse to show some of it is a good one. :) And the kids were really into it too.

After that we talked about yaks. I asked the boys if they knew what a yak was. They didn't. So I showed them this picture of Lincoln's Uncle Kelly riding on a yak in Mongolia, where he served his mission.

We talked about how the yak is part of the cow family, and how they live in cold parts of Asia like China, Russia, and Mongolia. People raise herds of yaks and use them for milk and to carry things.

After that we made our own yaks using the letter Y and some yellow yarn.

First we glued a yak shaped body onto a white piece of paper. Then used the letter Y for the horns and face of the yaks. We talked about how yaks have long hair to keep them warm because where they live it gets really cold. I gave the boys some small strips of yarn, and let them glue the yarn on their yaks for hair. Then we got out the markers and crayons and drew grass for the yaks to eat, and mountains behind them, where they live. Lincoln made his grass orange and blue, and his mountains look and are more like "pokey dots", as he called them. But I think these yellow yarn yaks turned out really cute.

For the last activity we went outside to play a game. I used Word and Clipart to find pictures of things that started with Y and I printed them out and cut each one into a square. Then I folded up each square so you couldn't tell what was on it, and stuck the papers in a bowl.

For the game, the boys took turns drawing out pieces of paper. Then we talked about the Y word that was on the picture. Then we had a yelling contest. We had to yell the word on the picture as loud as we could before anyone could draw out another one. The boys thought this was so funny. I'm sure our neighbors didn't appreciate it.

And I slacked on a treat this week and didn't do one. I thought of York Peppermint Patties, but didn't have time to run to the store, and yogurt, but didn't want to fight the battle of not letting Ivan have one when everyone else was. So I left it at no treat. Sorry guys.

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