Being offline this past week has been very nice. It’s been non-stop for the most part and there are some exhausted kiddos {and adults}, but everyone is having lots of fun.

A highlight of our little boy’s week? A first time visit to a full-fledged LEGO store. Being able to play with LEGO bricks and race cars with others was so much fun!

There was also the whole Star Wars attraction that made many children happy. Repeatedly.

We may only be in Florida, but seeing small snippets of different world cultures {through Epcot} has been fun as well.

And although I had every intention of visiting your blogs this past week…time slipped away from me! I am very certain there were some fabulous links last week {and there will be as many this week}, so please be sure to visit a few of the others linking up this week and leave them a comment.

Have a FABULOUS weekend!!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>

This week has been a whirlwind! We said goodbye to our family from Holland and then furiously finished packing to head to Florida to have a little lot of Disney fun. As I sit here typing, the kids are all completely zonked out in their beds, exhausted after a full day of surprises, fireworks, and smiles galore.

Fireworks at Epcot

And we are definitely having fun!

The best part? Seeing the AMAZEMENT on our kids faces and Disney through their eyes.

Tell me this face isn’t fun to watch! :)

We still have several days of fun ahead of us and are so very excited to have this time together to relax!

Fun Ideas from Readers

Here are a few fun ideas from readers to highlight this week As always, I appreciate you all sharing your ideas. Be sure to stop by and visit these families and leave a comment!

Natural Beach Living shares their fun Letter O unit where they made an ocean sensory box. It involves fizzing and food coloring – so it’s guaranteed fun!

If you are working on the letter X, be sure to check out this CUTE hand x-ray made out of q-tips. Nestpirations put together this fun activity after looking at x-rays online

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>

Before I forget, there are some GREAT educational resources included in the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle that is only on sale until May 4th. Carisa’s Raising Rock Stars kindergarten curriculum is included, as well as the Letter of the Week K4 curriculum, along with the additional books below. These are just a small portion of the eBooks included!!

Overall, a fairly quiet week at our house. Well, except that my cousin and her son are visiting from Holland. It has been so much fun watching our children play together, especially with the language difference. The first day everyone was running around the house chasing each other. When Kaleb ran past he was laughing and shouting, “I have NO idea what he is saying!” Just a few moments later, my cousin’s son ran by and said to her in Dutch, “I have NO idea what they are saying!”

We still took time each day to work on a bit of school and are *this* close to finishing all of our subjects. We wrapped up the last of our Nancy Larson Science K this week {woot!}. Reading will be a subject that we will continue to work on in the upcoming months. And math…just a few more lessons til we are done {shhhh…we may skip them!}.

The kids have been asking for months to visit our nearby children’s museum again, so we took an afternoon to spend some time there. Even I forgot how much fun we have there!

Everyone is so VERY excited that our trip to Disney is in less than a week {and so am I}!! Cannot wait to share some fun pictures with you soon!

Fun Ideas from Readers

Thanks to all of you or so generously sharing your ideas with all of us each week! Here are a few that have recently linked up and shared some fun ideas.

Check out the SUPER cool light table that Life is Good showcased this week. Her hubby put it together for their daughter. Amazingly cool!

Teach Beside Me made some alphabet pop art with her kids. I love all the fun colors!

Tots and Me made counting a definite hands-on activity this week. They used pieces of masking tape to label fingers from 1 to 10.

We would love to see what you’ve been up to this week! Link your preschool or kindergarten related post up below and visit some of the other moms linking up and say hi!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>

The circus came to town this week and we had a friend who took us on a behind-the-scenes tour. We met Chips the Clown and the Ringmaster who talked to us about all the hard work that goes into getting the circus set up – and for just 2 short days before they have to pack up and move on to the next city!

We learned about the generators that power the entire circus, the cook hall, met the elephants and tigers, and had some fun trying to juggle and hula hoop with the clowns. The group travels for almost nine months out of the year – and some of the families even homeschool!

Somehow the rest of the week managed to fly by. We had some fun with the new Circus Theme Math and Language Printables and will work on a few more circus crafts next week as well.

The kids have all been looking forward to family visiting from Holland {arriving Friday and staying for almost 2 weeks}, and our Disney vacation countdown chain has officially passed the less than 2 week mark – so there are some EXCITED kids in the house {and a mom scrambling to get things done!}.

Fun Ideas from Readers

Here are a few ideas from readers linking up last week. Be sure to stop by and leave a comment and say hi! A few of those linking up are not just homeschoolers – which in truth is fun. I love that we all have ideas to share that help our little ones learn! Keep encouraging each other along the way!

If you have little boys, consider pulling out any tractors that you have on hand and use them to paint with – head over to How to Run a Home Daycare to learn more. Our kids always loved the different tracks and prints we made doing this!

If our girls were little…oh a Fancy Nancy Tea Party would be way too much sweetness to handle!! The Homework Diaries shares the fun party she put together {with many of the supplies from the dollar section at Target!}

The Swimmy Stamp Activity from Mama Jenn is super cute – and a fun go-alogn when reading the book by Leo Lionni. Love it!

That’s it for this week – what have YOU been up to this week with your kids? Leave a comment and link up below – be sure to visit someone else on the link list as well and leave a note to encourage them this week!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>

This week I pulled out the last few weeks of school work and the kids were almost giddy with excitement at how LITTLE there is for us to do. Granted there are a few other things to work on as well {history, reading, etc…}, that aren’t as easy to visibly measure.

BUT…Kaleb’s desire to read this past week has been amazing. It’s like watching another little something ‘click’ in his brain. He actually keeps coming to me with his book from All About Reading and asks if he can read me a story.

I will sit down ANY DAY with him for that.

We won’t talk about how long it took him to finish a story one day this week – thanks to the multiple, multiple interruptions from siblings all.the.time. {I may have almost fallen asleep too thanks to the warm sun shining in on us at the window seat…ahem}. And yes, I just admitted that! {grins}

I have no exciting pictures to share this week with you all. We did take a field trip and went on a great nature walk, worked some more on our Nancy Larson Science {we’re growing and comparing plants right now}, made some great progress and finished up the second book in All About Reading, built a fun derby car with our Simple Machine pack from LEGO Education ®. All in all a fun week with lots of learning squeezed in!

Ideas from Readers

Here are some fun ideas that readers have shared when linking up over the last few weeks. Be sure to click over and visit their posts to say hi!!

With Earth Day coming up, you might be interested in some of the hands-on ideas that Every Star is Different shares, including this visual example of water pollution.

If you are looking for some fun water science experiments, be sure to visit Train Up a Child. Not only does she have some great pictures, she shares quite a few experiments {W is for Water} that you can work on with your kids.

Cassie from 3 Dinosaurs shares a fun spring tree yarn craft that she worked on with her girls. Love the pink – reminding me of all the beautiful cherry trees in bloom right now!

And I just love, love, love this Arctic sensory tub from Learning at Play. It’s cute, fun, and just makes me want to put one together. Enough said.

If you {or someone you know} is having a baby soon, share these fun learning ideas from Mama to 4 {soon to be 5!!} Blessings. She put together some hands-on learning ideas for the older siblings to get them excited about their soon-to-arrive sibling.

What have you been working on with your kids this week? Are you getting close to finishing up your year? Link up this week with your posts or leave a comment and share with us!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>

The past two weeks we’ve been slowly {and I mean slowly} working our way through the book Katy No Pocket. Based on the fun we had making the bag book to go along with the Legend of the Easter Egg, Kaleb wanted to make another one for Katy No Pocket {directions on how to make a bag book are in that post above}. We used quite a few of the printables from the Homeschool Share lapbook and a few additional ones that I had from an Australia and kangaroo teacher’s guide sitting on our shelf.

This book was a lot of fun to read and we both noticed that there was something in the story from a past book we read together – the Hotel Bellevue from The Red Carpet!!  In addition to reading the story together many times, here are a few of the things that we did to go along with Katy No Pocket.

Math

As we read through the story, we counted the animals on each of the pages. On the last page of Kaleb’s bag book, Kaleb made a tally mark for each animal he found in the story. It was a lot. And he did a fabulous job with the tally marks! Yay!!

We counted ears on animals, babies, pockets on Katy’s apron, tools that fell out of the box – you name it, we counted it! We also measured the distance that we could each jump and compared it to how far a kangaroo could jump. Can you guess who could jump longer?

Geography

This was a great story to talk about the continent of Australia and get a little geography time in. We happened to also have a packet from Little Passports for Australia that we hadn’t opened yet, so it was the perfect time to use that. Kaleb loves the online activities that Little Passports offers {it’s not just the packets in the mail!} and the best part for him was creating some Aboriginal artwork of a kangaroo. We had this on our list to do, and I had no idea it was a part of the online special treat – so it was a win/win!

During our geography time we also talked about islands and the flag of Australia, as well as the different cultures in Australia. Kaleb cut out a small version of the Australian flag and then taped it to a straw.

Science

Our science time was spent learning a LOT about kangaroos. We talked about marsupials, the parts of a kangaroo and how a baby kangaroo develops and grows, the names of a mom/dad/baby kangaroo, what kangaroos eat – and so much more!

Art Fun

Drawing is always fun, so we added a page in our bag book of simple directions on drawing a kangaroo.

Kaleb also made a fun kangaroo pop-up out of a toilet paper roll. This boy loves his crafts and I so often tend to overlook that!! {this was from one of the Evan Moore books – so I don’t have a link!}.

Some Helpful Links for Katy No Pocket, Australia and Kangaroos

Here are some great links for you to check out that might help you along in a study on Australia and/or kangaroos:

• Australian Animals Kindergarten Unit from Homeschool Share
• Katy No-Pocket lapbook and printables from Homeschool Share
• Australia geography resources and lesson plans
• A children’s map of Australia {we printed this off for a page in our bag book}
• Australia continent bag from Counting Coconuts
• Australian Aboriginal dot art
• Parts of a Kangaroo nomenclature cards
• Kangaroo dot painting craft
• A fabulous Pinterest board from trilliummont with TONS of resources

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

Were you featured?

<a href="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/category/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.homeschoolcreations.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Featured-on-Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community.png" title="I was featured at the Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations" /></a>