I know some of you might have kiddos that already got out of school and maybe you can pin these ideas for next year. My girls are getting out this week and I put together a fun little surprise for the last day of school!
My Kindergartener in particular has been a little stressed out about leaving her friends and the entire end of school process has been a little overwhelming. And can you believe Mom and Dad have to go out of town the day they get out of school? Talk about timing!
So I put together these little surprises for both of my girls as a welcome to summer surprise. My little girl is 3 and she does preschool just a few hours a week. Next year she will do preschool again ;). My big girl is going into First Grade which is a big step- she gets out of school now at noon and next year she will go until 3:30- yikes!
Now our mornings are a rush so I didn’t even try to put on a special surprise in the morning (#forgettaboutit) but I did have some things up my sleeve for when the kiddos came home.
The first thing is this cute little photo print from Staples- it was $1.69 and says “Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello 1st Grade!” for my baby girl it says “Preschool Here I Come!” (um ok so that one doesn’t work as well but she is moving from Preschool to Preschool so there you have it.)
The engineering prints are these oversized ones at Staples that are super cheap- so you won’t get amazing quality and it is only black and white- but for this purpose it was perfect! These are poster size prints.
Since it is a black and white print I just used a highlighter to color in the words and then taped these to each of their bedroom doors. (I added those words to a regular photo using Pic Monkey and then sent it off to Staples. The words were white and then I colored them in.)
Aren’t these great? I will totally do this again for parties. You could do so many different things- Welcome Home, Happy Birthday, We Will Miss You…. next year I’ll probably do a class photo for Teacher Appreciation Day and tape it to the door of the class for our teachers.
And then when they went into their rooms, they found little surprises! I got a white bucket from the Dollar Store and just used my Silhouette to make a cute label for it. A sand bucket would be very cute too but we already have a few of those.
I also grabbed a few little toys from the Dollar Store- a little snorkel (she has been begging for one believe it or not), some silly little flower that dances around, and water balloons. There is also a Merida Pez dispenser which everyone needs to have really and some Crayola paint brushes I bought awhile back. Plus brand new PJ’s for summer and her Summer Bridge Workbook.
Oh and instead of balloons I got these rainbow flower things that have a stake to put in the backyard. The girls will love them and we can put them right in front of their playhouse.
My little girl has a similiar basket- she got new PJs, a watercolor Minnie book, a glow in the dark bouncing ball kit, the little flower and a Strawberry Shortcake pez dispenser.
This doesn’t have to be expensive – a few little trinkets or you can stock up on lots of things to keep the kids busy all summer. Anything you might already be buying for summer like sunglasses, bathing suits, flip flops etc… would be perfect to pop in a bucket. Whatever works for your family would be perfect.
And there you have it- end of summer surprises! Oh and one last little note. On the first day of school I told the girls the Back to School Fairy comes and brings a surprise if they are good girls. They got little dolls and new lunchbags and water bottles. So I told them this was from the Last Day of School Fairy. My baby girl swears she saw the Last Day of School fairy fly by her window and they have been sitting there watching for her ;). Seriously- all the trouble was worth it for that moment with the little ladies sitting and staring out the window waiting to see if she would come back.
If you want to do the same thing with your littles, a trail of glitter leading to the windowsill or doorway would be a great touch. The tooth fairy leaves glitter trails at our house.
Happy Summer!
I love it such a great idea! I hear you on the older one being unsure on leaving friend. My oldest is in private school so all her friends don’t live close. I will be doing this for my daughters because they both get out next week. Thank you!
You are such a thoughtful mom, Charlene! Your girls are going to have such fond childhood memories when they are older. I can’t wait to use your great ideas when i have little ones : )
Elizabeth I hope it is good memories! Hopefully it isn’t sharing stories of their wacky Mother with some therapist :D.
Oh my goodness! This is an adorable idea! I have 5 kids so I really appreciate the low-cost ideas you come up with Charlene! I love to do special things for the kiddos, but I have to multiply it all by 5 without breaking the bank -so your insider info on things like these engineer prints just really fit the bill!!! I think I can pull this one off – you really are so clever! Thank you so much for sharing!
i have child finishing middle school. 8th grade goes to theme park on friday. last day is wednesday and there is graduation ceremony and huge party in school gym for 8th graders. i also have child finishing elementary school. 5th graders have a picnic on friday but no graduation ceremony. i got them each a graduation card and small gift (about $5 on sale each). i’m thinking we may eat out lunch with dad on last day of school since half day (very little time for dinner considering the 8th grade ceremony). does anyone have any other ideas?
Ok, this is probably a dumb question, but does the glitter vacuum right up or does it get everywhere?
Love the idea as my son is bound to lose his first tooth soon. Thx!
Jill, Glitter does tend to go everywhere in my opinion but I have always just vacuumned it up without any issues. If you really don’t want any glitter left anywhere you could always bring in your shop vac and that would for sure get the job done :).
WOW MY MOM GOT THE IDEAS FORM THIS WEBSITE see im in 6th going into 7nth and i met all my friends this year so i didnt want to leave so she got all that stuff from that website wow.
Moms & Grand-mas,
Back in the late 60’s, they had a craft that was liquid & in a qt. can. You took wire & twisted it into the shape of a leaf or petal. Then, you dipped it in the can. When it dried, it was like a thin plastic film. My aunt told me it was called Fantasy Film. Well, that may have been a great name when I was 5, but is definitely something you do not want to google. Trust me! I did it at work & scared myself to death. I couldn’t shut the computer down fast enough, so I yanked the cord out of the wall. Point being, does anybody know of something similar or a recipe to make something to work the same way. My sister-in-law found a butterfly that had been made like the flowers & gave it to me about ten years ago. The plastic part eventually tore loose from the wire. I would greatly appreciate you all asking around & emailing me if you know or hear of something. It was probably pulled off of the shelves for being toxic or something. It’s a miracle I made it to adulthood. Lol
Ha ha ha! Poor Kathy 🙂 I’ll trust you and won’t google that.