Hey everybody! I can't believe it is already the second week of August! Even more than that, I can't believe that my little mister is starting Kindergarten!
Back to school season has always been one of my favorite times of year; with my office supply fetish and love of all things organizational, I've always relished the chance to get everything JUST SO for the start of a new year. Plus, sales! I think I'll always be a student at heart, so it's really thrilling to see my little boy start off his academic career this year, even if it means I've officially become the Mom of a school-age kid! How on Earth did the last 5 years slip by so fast?
So, Ben starting kindergarten was a HUGE DEAL for our family. I'm prone to celebrate and make a fuss over things anyway, but I really wanted it to feel special and exciting for Ben, since he was a bit nervous. I love to surprise my kids by decorating the living room while they're sleeping, so it feels a bit magical when they wake up to a party. This is what I came up with:
Cute right? And the best part is, this whole thing cost very little. Everything was from the dollar store and what I had around the house. I started with a paper table runner, made by taping sheets of regular old notebook paper together. I thought yellow, red and black seemed like the best colors to
encapsulate school- red apples, yellow pencils, black chalkboards. I
used Sharpies to decorate the white balloon so it was custom for our
Kindergarten kickoff, and made a quickie banner with chalk and black
construction paper. Then I hung yellow streamers, tied a couple of balloons to a vase filled with pencils and crayons, and voila! Instant party.
Of course, the real star of the party was the giant pencils filled with treats! I got the idea from German "Schultütes," which are paper cones filled with toys and candy that parents give to their children to celebrate the first day of school. I actually intended to make cones, but craft inspiration struck, and I'm glad it did, because my kids loved them.
Since I'm a nice lady and want all the kids of the internet to have special giant pencils for their first day of school, I thought I'd offer a tutorial on how to make these beauties! Here's what you'll need:
- 1 sheet of poster board (makes two pencils)
- construction paper in pink and yellow
- tape (I used clear packing tape, regular scotch tape, and silver washi tape)
- a black permanent marker
- scizzors
- a ruler
- a pencil
- a bone folder (a credit card will work if you don't have a bone folder)
Cut the poster board in half width-wise, so you have two tall and skinny-ish pieces. Mark at the top, middle, and bottom of the poster board every two inches. You should end up with 6 marks, 7 sections. The last section may be smaller or crooked, but it doesn't matter because you won't see it anyway.
Fold along each line with your fingers, then go back and make smooth creases with your bone folder. The poster board doesn't like to fold neatly, so you really have to make sure you use a bone folder or a credit card to get a nice smooth line.Your sections will probably become uneven when you fold them, but it doesn't really matter.
Once all your lines are creased, tape the poster board into a tube. The last (often uneven) section will fold underneath so that you have a six-sided tube. I used packing tape to tape this part, but you could use regular tape if you don't have packing tape. Just make sure to tape it securely so it doesn't come apart.
Take your scizzors and make angled cuts from the fold mark to the center of each section, removing a triangle of poster board from each section.
Set your tube upright on the pink construction paper and trace the bottom hexagon shape. It doesn't have to be perfect, you just want a rough outline of the shape.
Draw straight lines coming out from each side of the hexagon. These don't have to be exact, but it's better to err on the side of wider blocks that you can trim down if you need to.Cut along the lines. You'll have a rough star shape.
Measure and mark each side of the star to the same length. I did two inches, but you could do longer if you want a taller eraser. Cut along your new lines.
Place the tube on top of the pink star. You may have to adjust and rotate a little to get the sides to line up right. Then tape each section up. It's okay for there to be gaps or overlap, you can tape those down once you've taped each section up. It's easier if you tape one side, then the opposite side before the one next to it. Tape along the gaps until the eraser is secure and looks smooth.
With silver tape, tape along the line where the pink and green meet. I used silver washi tape, but you could use duct tape or electrical tape, whatever you have on hand. I went around a couple of times to give it a fatter band.
Make a cone shape out of the yellow construction paper. Be warned: this part is kind of a pain in the ass. You may have to adjust this a few times to get it the right size for your pencil. The base of the cone should be just wide enough to sit inside the tube without falling it. Too small and it wont stay up, too fat and it wont fit in, or it'll crease when it's in. Tape it along the tip so it doesn't come unraveled. Trim it up along the bottom so that it could sit up, then tape where the edges meet. Use a black permanent marker to color the tip so that it looks like a pencil.
Now fill it up with the treats. I put classic school-y stuff in mine: jacks, jump ropes, character pencils, color your own stickers, crayons, Smarties, fruit-roll ups, and ring-pops. Then shove the cone in the top. You could tape it or glue it, but if you let it rest in the top, the kids can get the treats out without ruining the pencil.
Finish them up by writing your kids name on the side in your best kindergarten handwriting. I couldn't resist adding the No.5 on the side with their ages on it, even if they didn't really get the joke.
My kids loved these pencils! I didn't let them open them until after school, and I think that anticipation helped get Ben through his first day. Even after they took the treats out, the two of them kept playing with the pencils all afternon. They filled them up with other toys, dumped them out, sword fought with them. I finally had to take them away so they didn't completely destroy them. Ben had a great first day of kindergarten. Surprisingly enough, neither of us cried! We concluded the day with a pizza party with his grandparents and aunties and uncles. I'm so glad we could make the day really special for my little man. Here's hoping your first days of school are awesome, too!
