+ Starting new First Day of School traditions
Dear World , I sure hope you are ready for Harper because my girl is coming 👏🏻 for 👏🏻you 👏🏻- first stop: Pre-K ! Happy first day of school! I’ve been feeling all the feelings about my little (big) girl starting school this year. Mostly, I am SO excited for her. She has been waiting for this and I just know that she’s going to absolutely thrive. Harper, on the other hand, is over-the-top excited to start “real” school this year and it was really fun to have the chance to plan some new first day of school traditions ! She’s looking forward to learning ALL the things; during open house she already caught her sweet teacher off guard by asking what they would be learning the next day! Ha! She couldn’t believe the amount of toys/art supplies/wall art/you name it that were in her classroom.
First up was her very first first day of school sign and photo (that we actually took a few nights before, because who needs that craziness added to the first day?!) This is hands-down one of the first day of school traditions that I couldn’t WAIT to start! I love seeing others share them year after year on social media. And while I hope time goes nice and slowly, I can’t wait to see this full series one day. There are SO many choices for first day of school signs, and while I love letter boards and chalkboards, I just fell in love with this adorable pennant flag. Plus the maker is local to me so I was thrilled to support her small shop!
Cue all the tears. Really, though, is there anything better than that last picture ? Omg, be still, my heart!! I was cracking up and asked what in the world she was doing and she told me,
It’s just like I’ve been waiting for this a really long time. This is my face to show I can’t believe it!”
Making the First Day of School Extra Special
And because I can’t miss the opportunity to be a little extra, we celebrated my first-born stretching her wings just a little bit with the cutest Happy First Day of School treat and decor to celebrate her newest adventure!
I set up this tablescape the morning of her first day with the intention of making a fun Back to School breakfast to go along with it. However, I learned that -for me- the chaos of the first morning is probably not the time to be getting creative with our food (if you can do it, more power to you, I’d rather hit my snooze button one more time and serve instant oatmeal instead). So there was a change of plans and I made a sweet after-school snack instead so that we could sit and talk alllll about her first day of school while enjoying a yummy treat. I hope that this becomes another first day of school tradition that the kids will look forward to year after year !
I typically start my table decor with a roll of brown paper as a neutral table runner and get creative from there. Here, I used a roll of writing paper that I found in the Target dollar spot and added letters from our alphabet puzzle. I used a vase of wildflowers from our yard, a bowl of apples, and jar of positivity pencils as well as the “First Day” flag from her first day photos, to create a school-inspired centerpiece.
Happy First Day of School Pencil Treat
I have seen this sweet pencil treat floating around my various social media feeds and it was just too adorable and easy to pass up! We modified ours a bit to make it allergy friendly. Other yummy options include swapping the graham crackers for wafer cookies or waffles!
Ingredients: Graham Crackers, store-bought vanilla frosting, red/pink food coloring, mini chocolate chips (Enjoy Life is a great brand if you’re making allergy friendly treats).
- Break the graham crackers along their lines so that you have 4 small rectangles.
- Use a knife to cut the corners off of one side of each rectangle, creating a point.
- Use the vanilla frosting to fill in the pointed end of the graham cracker (the tip of the pencil.)
- Place a mini chocolate chip on the tip of the white frosting to make the pencil tip.
- Mix a few spoonfuls of the remaining frosting along with a drop of pink food coloring in a small bowl.
- Use the pink/red frosting to add an “eraser” to the other end.
Enjoy!
Tag me @jessicagrant14, I’d love to see your back to school celebration!
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What do you think?