F, O, X, fox

Gus: Give me a word, any word, and I show you how the root of that word is Greek. How 'bout 'arachnophobia'? 'Arachne,' that comes from the Greek word for 'spider' and 'phobia' is a phobia, is mean 'fear.' So, fear of spiders.... there you go.
Girl 1: Okay Mr. Portakalos, how bout the word 'kimono'?
Girl 2: *whispers* good one.
Gus: Ah, kimono, kimono, kimono........AAAH, of course, 'kimono' is come from the Greek word 'jimona,' which mean 'winter.' What do you wear in the winter to keep warm? A robe. So robe, kimono, there you go.

You ever feel you're like you're grasping a bit?

Sorta felt like that just now when I was at Nursery School. I'm supposed to be helping them with Jolly Phonics, a program that teaches the 42 phonic sounds with songs, actions and stories. We've finished the basic consonant sounds and the short vowel sounds and have moved onto the long vowel sounds. Each of the phonic sounds has an action and short song to explain the sound.

With the short a sound (aah), you take your fingers and walk them up your arm like ants crawling on you, and saw 'aah, aah, aah.' That's good, right?

I figure Jolly Phonics was reaching a bit, though, when they tried to explain the long e sound, because they've combined it with the 'or' sound, and the action you're supposed to teach with the two sounds is "eeyore, eeyore" and wagging your hands on your ears, like you're a donkey.

How are you going to teach two separate sounds, with 4 separate letters, in one day? And the long vowel sounds? They can be spelled in several different ways. It feels quite complicated.

So, for today, I decided to recap on the previous lesson of long i, spelled only 'ie,' and we practiced combining i and e to make long i sound, and we spelled lie, die and tie.

"T, I, E, tuh, eye, tuh, eye. What does that spell? tuh, eye, tuh, eye, TIE. In the morning, Enid puts on her uniform and TIES the sides together.... When Toshao dresses up with a nice shirt, he puts a TIE on."

"D, I, E. duh, eye, duh, eye, duh eye. What does that spell? DUH, EYE..... DIE. Um..... my bird is sick, I hope he doesn't DIE."

Then, we moved onto the ee-or sounds. We looked at the page, we saw the donkey, we saw the kids in the picture wagging their hands on their ears, we saw donKEY, shEEP and BEEs.

"OK, we're going to learn to spell one of these animals that has the long e sound. 'S,' what sound does that make? - sssss - Yes, and 'H,' what sound does that make? - huh - yes, but TOGETHER, s and h makes the 'shhhhhh' sound. Call that sound! - shhhhh - Good.

Ok, next, what two letters? - E and E - yes, good, and two E's together makes what sound? - eeeeee - yes, ok and last letter: P. What sound? - puh - good.

So lets put them together: SH, EE, P. SH, EE, P. What does that spell? SHEEP. You see? And, now, for our last song; what sound does a sheep make?........ Baaaaa. Ok, so let's sing 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'!"

So, there you go.