MyMilitarySavingsTis the season!! The stores are overflowing with pencils, crayons, and glue sticks. The kids are antsy – not quite ready for the structure of a classroom and new responsibilities but suffering from slight boredom due to too much freedom. Or is that just my kiddos?? 🙂 Here in Georgia, the new school year is just a few days away and we are doing all that we can to prepare our best. School supply lists have been checked off, new clothes have been bought, our fridge is stocked with all of the breakfast and lunch necessities… now just to mentally prepare these little ones!!
We just attended my pre-schooler’s open house at her new school and I’m pretty sure I am more excited than she is!! NO, not because I am aching to get rid of her during the daytime (what sort of parent do you think I am? Haha. I’m a normal mother that 75% wants more free time and 25% doesn’t want my child to leave… come on!) But because we wandered through the hallways and it just screamed *opportunity* to me. The bright colors, the friendly faces, the fun animals pasted on the walls and the shapes and the numbers that lined the cubbies. To be a kid again, right!? Where learning to write your name is the hardest task you’ve got on your plate.
My daughter, however, was understandably a bit nervous. This is actually her second year of pre-school but that’s a story for another time… different states have different age laws and New York and Georgia are not two states that agree, and I’ll leave it at that. But everything is much different this year and as I was hugging her, reassuring her that I’ll be with her up until she leaves for school and the very minute that she gets out, I was dying to express what an absolute blast I know she is going to have. Friends. Snacks. Coloring. Recess. Reading. More snacks. More friends!! And of course, so much more.
I decided to put together little back-to-school projects to do with my daughter to give us a chance to talk more about what she can expect and to touch up on some of the skills that she has previously learned. This fun pencil craft was one of them! It reviews the basic shapes, allows practice with scissors, includes a bit of handwriting, and requires following simple directions. Plus, it’s very similar to the name tags we saw taped on everyone’s desk. That’s actually what sold my daughter on this project!
Grab your little one and these materials:
- Yellow, brown, black, pink, and white construction paper
- Scissors, pencil, glue stick
- Small sheet of aluminum foil
Step 1) Depending on your child’s skill level, either create shape templates to allow your little one to trace and then cut or draw the shapes yourself onto the construction paper and instruct your child to cut them out. You need a large rectangle from the yellow paper (the pencil itself), a small rectangle from the pink paper (the eraser), a brown triangle (the wooden pencil tip), an even smaller black triangle (the lead of the pencil), and a thin rectangle from the aluminum foil (the metal that holds the eraser).
Step 2) Using the white paper as a base, the shapes should then be glued down into the form of a pencil! Then cut the excess white paper off. (I folded the aluminum foil over into the shape we needed so it wasn’t flimsy.)
Step 3) Ask your munchkin to write his or her name to finish it off!
You can even take it a step farther and laminate this to preserve a memory or milestone of whatever grade your child is entering. Don’t forget to write the date on the back!
And another idea… how about creating a larger version of this to give to the teacher as a back-to-school gift? I think it’d look pretty nifty hanging from the classroom door!
Good luck with the new school year and may it be an easy breezy, smooth sailing one for both children and adults alike. 🙂
For more fun, family crafts visit MyMilitarySavings.com!
Cassi Anderson
Katie Freeze
