X is for eXcellent

Today we had a lot of fun.  We went outside to play and pick the garden before it got too hot to be outside.  We wrote letters in the sandbox, per Rich's suggestion.  This was a good substitute for using the shave cream that CJ hates.  They liked writing today's letter X.  We talked about weather, and what a hurricane is.  We talked about the upcoming possibility of a hurricane and what might happen.  We used the words eXcellent and eXtra often to describe things today.  We talked about how X does not say /ks/ when at the beginning of a word, except X-ray.  We also discussed what an X ray does and why we need them.  This was especially appropriate since my cousin next door possibly needed one.  I went to assist her because she thought she broke her toe. 

We came up with a long list of words that have X in them.  CJ spelled and read ox, fox, fix, mix nix, next, lox, axe, pox, fax, sax, max, six and every other short x word we could think of.  We did this with letter cards and letter blocks.  We spent an hour reading and spelling words, and they both did a super eXcellent job!  We played our pretend xylophone since they knew that starts with X.  We practiced writing X on the carpet, in the sand, and on the easel outside. 

We made mustard from scratch today, and canned it.  The kids helped me pick the sage to go in it, and we discussed the measurements and recipe as we went along.  I explained why it is important to follow a recipe for canning to ensure food safety.  We talked about how to preserve foods, and why this was important a long time ago before grocery stores and refrigerators.  They thought it was interesting, but didn't really understand.  We had eXtra crunchy toast with eXcellent jam for breakfast.  We has eXtra crunchy peanut butter on eXcellent bread for lunch with kiwis with X cut into them.  We had eXtra cheesy broccoli, cauliflower, rice and ham skillet casserole with salad for dinner.  We made some X shaped orange spice rolls to have with spiced poached pears for dessert.  The kids had a blast making the X shape with the dough.  We had a great day!  We accomplished a lot and had fun together.  Who could ask for more?