16868

Back To School Party (5-8yr) Frig Magnet Craft

October 2007

Kristy in Bear, DE (USA)

Honorable Mention

My husband and I have four children together. Our son is 8 and our daughters are all 5 (Set of twins). The twins' birthday is in Aug and the other is in Oct. Sept is a good month to do alot of things for them together since they are so close in age. This year was especially fun because the girls all started Kindergarten. I had a Back to School for my son when he started a new school to get him excited about it and get to know a few people before the dreaded first day. We recently just moved to DE from AZ so I felt we were back in the same situation. We moved closer to the twins which live in NJ. I decided to invite a few kids from the neighborhood and friends of the girls that would be going to the same school.

First, I made invitations for the kids to hand out. I made them on regular lined school paper and folded them just like we did for passing notes. Back to School Party.... Date/Time, Location (Our place which is in a community), Time to celebrate the end of summer and get ready for a new adventure. The invitations included instructions... please bring your bike and a backpack. I even had the RSVP part of the invitation so they could just circle  yes or no. I made sure I included the invitation in the keepsake package for the kids after the party.

We had the party on a Sat a week before the first day. In preparation, I gathered enough information from the schools to determine a consolidated school supply list. I bought enough pencils, erasers, glue sticks, folders, scissors, and crayons for a scavenger hunt. I bought cheap decorations for their bikes and crafts for the party. For prizes, I went to the dollar store and got kids address books, notepads, stationary gift sets.

I prepared a lunch menu. Juice boxes, Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, apple wedges, chips, and for snacks we had Ants on a log. I made school themed cupcakes for dessert. They were decorated with letters, numbers, and shapes with different colors.

The first activity was to say goodbye to summer. We had 12 kids all together. Each person was given enough material to decorate their bike. We had playing cards to make noise with the tires, crate paper for steamers, and balloons. We gave them 10 minutes to decorate their bikes. After the 10 minutes was up, we had a parade where they rode their bikes to show off their masterpieces and were judged for creative. We handed out prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. It was time for lunch.

We gave everyone a brown lunch bag, markers and stickers to decorate their lunch bag. After they were done, we had them go through a line to get their lunch and went to the table to eat. They all enjoyed practicing for school. Even the older kids enjoyed teaching the younger ones what to do.

After lunch, we made crafts. I had each child make a refrigerator magnet to hang their art work with. I cutout school shapes from craft paper such as school house, apple, crayon box, or a book. They picked their shape and decorated it with crayons, markers, and glitter, making sure they wrote their name on the front.

While they played a few other games, I wrote a saying like Look what (Name) did" of course so did the parents. We made sure they knew they were to never do this at school. It was the highlight of the party.

The next game we had was the scavenger hunt. Since most were starting Kindergarten I drew the items on a piece of paper and left lines next to them so they could check them off. I made sure to use numbers and shapes for each (Get them back into the thinking mode). They wore their backpacks and we went outside where a variety of school supplies were hidden at the playground. They enjoyed the scavenger hunt and they all got useful things for the school year. They had a story for each item!

When we came back in and had cupcakes. All the kids seemed excited to start school and loved all of their new things. We reused their lunch bags to put their keepsake invitation craft and thank you note in. We were asked if we would be doing this yearly and wanted helped for next year. It was a good way to get them introduced to new kids and get them excited about the school year."

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