School Cones (Schultuete) from KinderCone.com

 
Mini School Cones from Kindercone.com

The very awesome Vivian from Kindercone.com contacted me after seeing my previous posts on the Schultuete (German school cones) that I give my kids each year.  She sent me a great package that included a set of Mini School Cones, Kinder Journals, a Karli the Cat plush, KinderCone bookmarks and KinderCone tattoos.  I was so excited to receive this package and share it with some of my friends and their children.  Many people have seen my kids with their cones on the school playground and have asked about them.  I love being able to pass on this fabulous German tradition.

The tradition of the Schultuete or “school cone”, which dates back over 200 hundred years,  is one of the most celebrated and long-standing traditions in Germany. At the beginning of every school year, children all over Germany set off with their large and shiny Schultueten, also called school cones or sugar cones by many. These large, colorful school cones, purchased or home-made, sweeten the child’s first day of school as they come filled with little gifts, school supplies and sweets.

We decided to invite some of our friends over for a Back to School Party and give out our cones.  I filled them with pencils, erasers, bubbles, pads, the bookmarks and tattoos from KinderCone and few other small things.

What I used to fill the School Cones

 We didn’t do anything too fancy.  We served some snacks and the kids played.  We had originally planned to be outside in the backyard, but unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us.  I used a bunch of free Back to School printables that I found on Pinterest to decorate.

Food Table for Back to School Party

 

Karli the Cat Enjoying Brownies

 

Back to School Party Banner

 After a few snacks, it was time to hand out the Schultuete/School Cones.  The kids were so excited to open them and find out what treats were inside.

Opening the Cones

 Siblings compare their treats.

Opening the Cones

The big kids had fun checking out the School Cones!

Big Kids Love School Cones!

Some Adults were a little jealous of their kids’ School Cones.

Adults are Jealous of their kids' School Cones

 All in all, the kids and parents had a great time at the party and receiving their first ever School Cones from the very awesome KinderCone.com!  Next year, I suspect we won’t be the only ones with our cones on the playground!  Thanks again, KinderCone.  YOU ROCK!

Kids Have a Blast at Back to School Party

 Bilingual Babes has also posted about school cones.  Check out her homemade ones!  They are great.

 

 

 

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End of School Class Mom Gift to Kids

End of School Gift from Class Mom to Kids
As class mom, I wanted to give the kids a little something at the end of school.  However, I didn’t want to fill a bag with candy or crappy little toys.  So, I decided to make them a useful, little safety bag.  In the bag, I included a 2 pack of glow sticks with lanyards purchased at the dollor store, a box of funky patterned bandaids scored on Woot.com for dirt cheap, a suncreen lotion wipe purchased in bulk on Amazon, and a bracelet whistle purchased from Oriental Trading. 
Contents of End of School Gift from Class Mom to Kids

I attached a tag I made using a graphic I found on Google Images that said “Have a Safe Summer!”.

 

Graphic Used for Tag

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Glow Bath = Cheap Fun

I don’t know exactly where I saw this (Pinterest, perhaps?) but whoever came up with this idea…..PURE GENIUS.  RUN to the dollar store and pick up some glow sticks (any kind will do).  Crack ‘em and throw ‘em in the bath.  Turn off the lights.  Figure out how to get the flash on your camera to work properly in the dark.  Watch your kids have a BLAST!  You’re welcome.

Glow BathGlow Bath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glow Bath Alien

 

 

Glow Bath-Blindfold

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Glow Sticks in the Bath

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Go Go Kiddo = Go Go AWESOME

I finally jumped into the 21st century and got a smart phone.  My husband and I picked up DROID RAZRs.  My first go with the phone was sketchy at best.  We picked up our phones on Sunday and by Monday, mine wasn’t working properly.  Verizon replaced the phone and now it is fine.  My husband’s crapped out by Wednesday, which Verizon also replaced (thank goodness for those insurance plans).  Apparently, we got phones from a bad batch.

Since my kids have been dying to play Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, I downloaded those apps first.  BUT, I really wanted some good kids apps that were fun AND educational.  Unfortunately, most of the great stuff available for IPhones is NOT available for the DROID. (Come on developers - show us some DROID love!)  I started searching on some of their favorite characters, but most of the games that included them had awful reviews.  Then, I stumbled upon Go Go Kiddo on Amazon’s list of Top Droid Apps.  It had everything I was looking for - education and fun, ala Angry Birds style.

Go Go Kiddo - a fun and educational DROID app

The game includes several activities:

Letter Launch - Trace letters, hear their sounds, and then launch them from a slingshot in this game. Knock down structures and pop bubbles to collect the letters needed to complete words. There are 36 levels of letter fun for children to tackle as they earn stars and unlock stickers.
Magic Elevator - Kids love pressing elevator buttons, right? Choose a floor and watch as the doors open and reveal something funny.
Creative Keys - This keyboard is more than just a piano. It’s a recording studio and sound effects generator. Children can follow along to learn songs or create their own music, and then watch the Go Go Kiddo characters dance to them.
Trace ‘n’ Race - In this entertaining game, kids trace a number and then race against the clock to touch all the characters displaying that number. The activity offers five different types of races and 36 levels of number fun.
My Stickerbook - Hours and hours of creative fun are unlocked in the stickerbook activity. It includes seven backgrounds and 450 stickers, allowing children to craft unlimited creations. Plus, on devices that have cameras, they can take photos to use as backgrounds or make funny faces.
Go Go Tunes - Go Go Kiddo’s lovable characters-Amber, Mac, Pip, Tenny, and Lily-star in a number of funny two-minute cartoon episodes that teach social skills around topics such as sharing, avoiding bullying, and respecting others.
Jokes and Riddles - Kids will laugh out loud at these riddles and knock-knock jokes from goofy and endearing characters Zooney and Gooney.
Sharing - After creating wonderful works of art in Go Go Kiddo’s Stickerbook activity, children can save them to the Camera Roll and send them to their friends and parents on their Facebook pages.
 
Both my 6 year old and 4 year old LOVE playing this game.  With so many choices, they are never bored.  The app costs $2.99 and is TOTALLY worth it.  We purchased ours from the Amazon App Store.
 
Disclaimer: I was in NO way compensated for this review.  This is simply a great app that we found on Amazon that I thought you and your children would enjoy.
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Army Party

CheezWaster decided he wanted an Army Party for his birthday.  I thought it was a great idea and it sure was easy to find stuff for this party (for once!).  The kids were so excited and ran from thing to thing, so I didn’t get a ton of pictures, but I’ll show you what we did and tell you about the rest.  We again used the space at our church hall.

INVITATIONS - For the invitations, I purchased an Army graphics package for $4.99 on Etsy.  I used a combination of the graphics and text wording it as if we were recruiting soldiers for a mission.  I used this as a guide, but made it my own.  We just printed them on regular computer paper - I mean, really…people just throw them away anyway.

DECORATIONS - I purchased a bunch of Army stuff from Party City.  They have a great camouflage line and it was conveniently all on sale online (but incidently not in the store - it looks like they don’t have much of it online anymore - I guess we got in on it just in time).  That was a lucky find!  I purchased 2 camouflage table cloths for the food tables and the rest of the tables I did in dark green, brown and beige table cloths.  I had some left over light green paper goods from The Destroyer’s bug party, so we used those and paired them with camouflage napkins.  We bought latex balloons that had tanks on them and were dark green, light green and black.  We also bought some camouflage mylar balloons.  I had also purchased the army tank balloon weights.  The local Army recruiter hooked us up big time with many items.  I got Army posters and Marine posters and hung them around the church hall.  We also had a camouflage netting and some blow up army rifles.  My husband accented the church hall with some real ammo cans.

Upon entering, each child was given a camouflage hat which I purchased from Oriental Trading.  Most of the kids showed up in camo clothes - which was AWESOME!  I was wearing a pink camo top and my husband was dressed in camo from head to toe!

GAMES - The first game we did, we called “Save the Soldier”.  At Christmas time, I purchased on sale a bunch of army men sets that included tanks, helicopters, flags, mountains, etc.  We gave each child a camo paper bag (from Oriental Trading) and let them “save” whatever they could.  Anything they could grab, they could take home.

Save the Soldier Army Men Toys

The next game was “Sergeant Says”.  This was just Simon Says where my husband played the Sergeant.  We played 2 rounds of this and I was surprise that the kids laughed as much as they did playing this game.  Sometimes the simple things work the best.

Sergeant Says

After Sergeant Says, we played a game we called “Top Shot”.  It was based on the Top Shot TV show.  In the fall, I had found 2 camo pump rocket guns on clearance at Target.  I made Angry Bird pigs out of paper using these box like templates.  I taped them over the tops of water and juice bottles and covered the bottles in green paper.  The kids had 2 shots to knock down the pigs.  Each pig had a value.  The top 2 values won Nerf Guns (they just happened to both be girls - YEAH GIRL POWER!), which I picked up at JC Penney on Black Friday for the very awesome price of $3.99.

Top Shot

The final game was a pin the tank in the target game, which we picked up from Party City.

Pin the Tank on the Target

All of the games had Army themed prizes such as Tank cars (metal cars like Hot Wheels), Lego Army Men Sets, Parachuting Army guys, etc.

FOOD - We just had normal party food.  We had a pretzel tray from the Philly Soft Pretzel Factory, chips, dip, fruit, veggies, and cookies.  As always there was Climax Beer from Climax Brewing Company, my family’s brewery, juice boxes, water and soda.

We had cupcakes made at our local ShopRite.  The bakery there air-brushed the cupcakes in camo colors.  The candles were a mini star and tank candle set from Party City.

Camo Colored Cupcakes

FAVORS - For the favors, we used Pencil Cases that I purchased for $.50 each at Target at the beginning of the school year (yes, we do plan ahead in this house).  I filled them with stuff that the Army Recruiters were nice enough to give me - stickers, pencils, bracelets, Army and basketballs.  The girls got camo lip balms (only camo on the outside) and the boys got the basketballs.  I also purchased Army themed yo-yos, notepads and pencil sharpeners from Party City.  The very fine folks over at MrsCraftyRVing made us the most awesome camo crayon rolls, which rounded out the pencil cases.

Army Party Favors

I also made little bags of gummi army men for the kids.  I used a regular Avery address label, camo scrapbook paper and ziploc bags.  The label read “Thanks for coming to my party, Soldier.  I hope you had a blast!”  and included a grenade graphic.  Very simple.  I ordered the candy from an online candy store in a 5 pound bag.  Google Gummi Army Men and you’ll find a ton of stores that have these.  Some places also had individual bags which I would have preferred, but they were MUCH more expensive.  I still have LOTS of gummi army men left, though.  DOH!

Army Men Candy Favors

As always, the kids had a blast running around the large space of our church hall.  They had tons of fun playing with the army men sets and the top shot game was a big hit.

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