There is perhaps no greater milestone for young children than beginning kindergarten. The first day of kindergarten is exciting and emotional for both parents and kids. And as parents know, kids grow up fast, and the first day of kindergarten flies by in an instant. Before you know it, your child will be in High School!
Want to preserve those special memories of your kindergartener’s very first day of school? Here’s a fun way to keep those special memories “hanging around!”
What You Need:
- Plastic tube clothes hanger
- Yarn
- Scissors and hole punch
- Photos from your child’s first day of Kindergarten
- Colored cardstock, or a colored index card
- Markers, stickers, and crayons and any other decorative accessories your child might like
What to Do:
- The night before her first day of school, write “My First Day, Hooray!” on the cardstock, along with the date. Have your child decorate the card with crayons, markers, and stickers etc however she likes. Then punch a hole in the top of the card, and attach it to the top of the hanger with a some yarn.
- Be sure to take some photographs from her first day: getting ready for school, packing the backpack, meeting the teacher, getting on or off the bus, etc. Punch a hole at the top of the photos.
- Save bits and pieces of items from your child’s first day of school: a note from the teacher, her name tag, a pencil from her supplies box, a snippet of a wrapper from her snack or lunch, a drawing of her teacher or classroom, etc. As with the photographs, punch a whole at the top of any of the paper items you've saved.
- Lay the hanger flat, and arrange the items (the photographs and the keepsakes from her first day) below the hanger. Tie a length of yarn to each item and connect it to the bottom of the hanger, so that items will hang at different lengths, creating a mobile.
- Hang the completed mobile in your child’s room, where it can remind her of her very first day of school. Next year, when she’s ready to move on to the next grade level, hang her first day outfit on the hanger the night before school to help ease those first day jitters!
This activity is a great way to help your child shake off some of those nerves and get her excited about her first day of kindergarten! You can extend this activity by making a first day mobile for each grade that your child enters, to keep a creative and memorable record of all of your child's First Days along her journey as a student.
By Liana Mahoney
Liana Mahoney is a National Board Certified elementary teacher, currently teaching a first and second grade loop. She is also a certified Reading Specialist, with teaching experience as a former high school English teacher, and early grades Remedial Reading.
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