Tatum is starting school this year, and in an effort to get her excited and talk about school positively, we’ve been doing fun activities and crafts to prepare her for this big step. Every couple of evenings after supper we take her to her school’s park, which is luckily just a few blocks from us, to get her more comfortable with the school, and we just did a few fun school-themed crafts this past weekend as well!
If you have a little one starting school this year it could be fun to get them involved in some school-related crafts to get the conversation going about what school will be like, and maybe they will open up about some fears they may be having. Even if you have an older child who is already a few years in to school this is a fun way to signal that school is on its way. Ready to get crafting with your kids? Take a look at some fun crafts to get them in the back-to-school routine!
Egg Carton School Bus
Tatum and I did this school bus craft at a story time program through the local YMCA a couple of years ago, and I thought the week leading up to school would be the perfect time to do it again. I have a hard time throwing out things that can be reused in some way, so naturally I almost always have at least four or five empty egg cartons lurking around in the craft section of my closet. This is a perfect craft to use up not only any egg cartons you may have lying around, but also those magazines you haven’t read in months! Here’s how we made it:
- Get your child to paint the egg carton as the body of the school bus. Obviously school buses are yellow but Tatum chose pink and purple and blue. I went with it.
- You’ll need a “SCHOOL” sign for your bus — I was lazy and wrote it in black sharpie on a piece of white paper and Tatum glued it to the bus — but you can either type it on the computer, cut it out of a magazine, whatever your heart desires.
- Your bus will also need wheels! Again I took the easy route and drew two circle shapes that resembled wheels and Tatum glued them to the bottom part of the egg carton “bus.” But you can find pictures on the internet and print them out, find them in a magazine, etc.
- The school bus is now ready for a driver and passengers! We had a lot of fun picking out people to put in the bus. We looked through the old magazines we had lying around, and then glued them on to look as though they were looking through the “windows.”
You have now made your very own egg carton bus! Easy to make and easily customizable. You can clean it up and make it look much fancier than I did, but I let Tatum take the reigns with this one and do most of the work, so she was quite proud of it!
Here’s an awesome craft from Kaboose that is great for reusing things lying around your home. We always have paper plates left over from birthday parties/get togethers etc., so I am always on the lookout for fun paper plate crafts. This one is adorable for young kids and requires a few simple supplies that you probably either have at home or you can easily find at the dollar store. Perfect for preschool or kindergarten kids!
This is a really great activity from DLTK for getting your child acquainted with learning how to write. They have a page full of different tracer pages for your child to try out, as well as colouring pages and other seasonal crafts and activities! Last year Tatum started out learning how to write by tracing letters, and this year she is doing great with writing the letters on her own. It’s one of my favourite learning activities to do with her!
- If you don’t have a printer at home or can’t access one, it’s easy to make your own tracer pages on white or lined paper. Write letters with dotted lines and have your child trace them as they would the printable version!
Super-cute craft from Activity Village for getting your little girl or boy more used to the idea of being at school! Have your child either draw pictures of them self and their friends or find photos to stick underneath the window flaps. While doing the craft you can talk with your child about what they think their teacher will be like, what they can expect during the school year, and anything else your little one may want to talk about in regards to the upcoming school year!
If your child has a backpack that could use a little sprucing up, this apple-print bag how-to from Martha Stewart is a great idea! We often do stamps made of food at home on paper, but putting them onto a bag would be a really neat way to customize your child’s back-to-school gear. Simple enough to do with your preschool-aged child, but we bet your grade-schooler will have fun with this craft too!
Do you do anything special to get your kids excited for back-to-school season? Any family traditions? Share them with us!
{Franki}
