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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Homeschool End of Year Celebration Ideas #FlavorYourSummer #ad #cbias

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #FlavorYourSummer #CollectiveBias

Even though we homeschool all year long, we love to have a party for the kids in the spring time as that's usually when we move up a grade and get all our new books and materials for the next season of schooling. We've always done something special to honor the kids' hard work over the year, but this is the second year we've planned an all-out bash! Are you interested in setting one up for your family? Here are just a few ways you can make your homeschool end-of-year party memorable and fun. Be sure to check out my article from last year's party for more great ideas.

I shopped Walmart for all our food and supplies for the party. Jamie was excited to make up some kabobs for the family, so I came up with a couple marinade recipes. I used Maggi® Chicken Flavor Bouillon and NesCafe® Clasico Coffee to make two great meat soaks. Both products were found in the Hispanic section of Walmart. I also picked up some Jack's® Pizza in the frozen pizza section of the freezer aisle.

It had been a really long time since I'd made skewers on the grill---mainly because threading enough skewers for 11 people takes a really long time. Ha! Jamie was all for it, though, and he made up a whole bunch of steak and chicken ones while Mom and I were out shopping last Saturday. These are the chicken ones he made for us---delicious!

The marinade for the chicken skewers was super simple. He used a very concentrated mixture of the bouillon and water and soaked the meat overnight. Then it was as easy as alternating the chicken, peppers, and onions on some pre-soaked skewers and grilling them until the meat was cooked through.

Savory Chicken Skewers
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2-3 assorted peppers
1 red onion
3 TB chicken bouillon granules
3 c. water

Cut chicken into chunks and place in bowl or plastic zip bag. Mix bouillon and water together until granules dissolve. Pour over chicken and refrigerate 24 hours. Cut peppers and onion into chunks and thread on skewers, alternating with meat. Grill and enjoy!

The second kabob recipe featured a coffee soak. I'll be honest---I wasn't totally sure about this one. I'd never tried anything marinated in coffee, but Jamie and my Mom assured me it would be great. Again, he used a concentrated coffee liquid mixture. Be sure to add salt and pepper to the marinade and let the meat soak 24 hours. With the addition of pineapple and onions, these skewers were an excellent idea!

Coffee-Soaked Steak Skewers
1 pkg. beef stew chunks
1 onion, cubed
1 pineapple, cubed
4 TB instant coffee granules
3 c. water
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper

Mix coffee, salt, and pepper into the water until salt and coffee are dissolved. Marinate the meat 24 hours. Thread pineapple, onion, and meat onto skewers and grill. Yum!

This was our first time trying Jack's Pizza and Jamie's first time grilling a pizza. We liked the taste and convenience of this brand---and the price was good, too. How fun to be able to grill it---keeps the kitchen cooler in the summer, for sure! 

I added a couple other fun "schoolish" snacks to the table. These cheese crackers are stamped with alphabet letters and the photo below it is alphabet-shaped cereal. Who says you can't play with your food? Our kids love spelling out words (even if they're not real words!) before munching their snacks.

Besides food, there are other great ways to celebrate the end of a great schooling year. Avalon will be honored at our co-op's graduation party for completing Kindergarten this year. Cap and gown sets are found very inexpensively online. This one also came with a tassel and a diploma for me to fill out. 

We like to gift the kids with something special like a new set of books or a DVD set they've all been wanting, but their favorite school-related gift is the refilling of their school boxes. I do this several times throughout the year and it's amazing the jump in excitement and motivation that occurs when the kids have new tools to learn with.

I also found these cute grade-completion certificates online. I printed this one out in black and white as I think it would be fun for a young child to color his own award.

Finally, what would a party be without games? One of our favorite party themes is the carnival theme. We've done several over the years and they're always a hit. We do everything from duck pond fishing to sack races to balloon darts. It's always a blast!

Another game we came up with this year is called, What Do You Remember? I grabbed a colored ball from Walmart and used a permanent marker to write phrases relating to the things we learned this past year. The kids take turns tossing the ball to one another and the person with the ball shares a memory relating to one of the phrases. It was fun for the kids to play this and remember all the great times we had!

Do you do anything special for your kids at the end of the school year? I'd love to hear some of your ideas!

2 comments:

  1. Those skewers looks delicious!! Love all the games you planned for your kids. Thanks! #client

    ReplyDelete

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Mrs. Sarah Coller

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