20 Best Tips

End of School Celebration with Funnel Cake ~ PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

The first day of school is celebrated with a nutritional-lacking round of funnel cake for breakfast. Healthy, no – but fun and something to remember – oh, yes.

This year a certain mother didn’t make funnel cake for the first day of school. She broke tradition and then heard about it almost weekly for the entire school year. You’d think that would make a mother cave and fry some up, but…no.

Until this week. We celebrated the END of our school year, and I attempted to win back the coveted ‘Mother of the Year’ award at least for one day. {grins}

Should you decide to fry up some fun for your kids, here’s the recipe that we used.

funnel cake

Funnel Cake

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
  • 2 cups milk
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 4 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • vegetable oil
  • powdered sugar

Directions:

Note: While mixing batter, heat 1” of vegetable {or other} oil over medium high heat in a deep pan until a few drops of water or a small drop of batter begin to sizzle.

  1. Mix the milk, sugar, vanilla and milk together
  2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl and gently stir into the liquid mixture until smooth.
  3. Once the oil is hot enough, use a funnel to add the batter to the oil for frying. I typically make a rough shape outline and then fill in the center to make it look like a web.
  4. Turn over the batter using tongs after a few minutes or when it has tuned a nice golden brown. Continue cooking on the other side.
  5. When funnel cake is ready, use tongs to remove it from the oil and place on a paper towel to let the oil absorb. Sprinkle {liberally – ahem} with powdered sugar and serve.
    A pretty yummy way to celebrate the end of our school year – and it may just need to become a start AND finish tradition.

What special way does your family celebrate the end of the school year? Leave a comment and share your ideas!

Fun Ideas to Check Out

Looking for some more fun ideas to use with your preschooler or kindergarteners? Check out these ideas from some of the moms linking up last week.

Summer Activites for Kids - Frozen Paint

The frozen paint recipe from 123 Homeschool 4 Me would be a HUGE hit in the middle of a hot day.

Cloud Dough

Maureen from Spell Outloud shares a recipe for Cloud Dough that looks like a lot of fun.

thunderstorm experiment

With thunderstorms more likely to happen in the summer, your kids might enjoy this hands-on idea to help explain what happends from Life with Moore Babies.

Thanks ladies for sharing your ideas 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}

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Moving on to Summer ~ Preschool and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

In some ways, it is hard to believe that we have wrapped up another year of school {yikes}. Technically there are still a few loose ends to tie up overall, so we have plans to continue on with a few things over the months of June and July before we start back up again in August.

Kaleb finished up the bulk of his school work, so the summer plans are to continue on with our Simple Machines from LEGO Education, have geography fun with Little Passports, work more with All About Reading Level 1, and read a lot of other books using our Reading Challenge Charts. We’ll also be squeezing in lots and lots of swimming at the pool and in the creek {since the weather already believes that it is late summer}.

What about you? Will you be working some through the summer or are you taking a well-deserved break?

Ideas from Moms Linking Up

Every week you all share some wonderful ideas, and I am so happy to share a few of them here with others.

block art

The Princess, The Pirate, and the Dinosaur shares a simple block print art project that uses foam trays from your local grocery store.

Lalymom Helicopter Seed Activities for kids

Lalymom shares a multitude of ideas to use with helicopter seeds – you’ll want to click over and check them out!

Continent Flannel Board

If you are studying world geography, Teach Beside Me has a great flannel board tutorial that would be a fun project this summer.

What fun projects do you have lined up for this summer?

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?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

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Some Fun Ideas to Bookmark ~ PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

Last week there were some FUN ideas linked up to the Preschool and Kindergarten Community – definitely ones that you all need to bookmark and try with your kids. A few would be great for the summer or to stay cool indoors if the heat gets too crazy in the upcoming months.

Teach Beside Me made some plaster puzzle blocks with toy animals, plaster of Paris, and baby food containers. Definitely a fun summer activity and you could use so many different toys for these puzzles. 

Playdough is practically a staple in homes, but maybe you need a few additional ideas for playing with it. Check out this list of 50 ways to play with it from Mums Make Lists.

If you are traveling at all this summer, car games are always something needed to help keep the kids occupied. Visit The View from the Pew to see some quick and easy ideas to pack before heading out the door.

Playing with your food is typically a no-no, but why not have a little fun with Jello? Lalymom shares a fun Kandinsky Jello Art project that will be yummy and fun!

Those are just a few of the great ideas shared in the link-up last week. Be sure to check the links this week as well and stop by to leave a comment to say hi to someone sharing. Thanks to all for linking up and being generous with your ideas!

 

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?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

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A Week of Family Fun – PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

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!

Disney Trip 2013-498

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

Disney Trip 2013-387

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

Disney Trip 2013-338

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?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

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The Disney Fun Begins – PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

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.

Disney Day 1 Thursday-50

Fireworks at Epcot

And we are definitely having fun!

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

Disney Day 1 Thursday-54

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?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

 

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Visitors from Holland ~ PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

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!}.

mechanics at the children's museum

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?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

Jolanthe Signature