Back To School Party

By Veronica (Guest Post)

I think "party" is the word you should focus on. Remember that these kids are old enough to know what school is like, and probably won't consider a too "realistic" school theme to be much fun.

Do give them school stuff, but not the ordinary stuff. Get brightly colored pencils with glitter on them (instead of the plain yellow ones), pencils, rubbers, pencil sharpeners, pens, pen cases, note books, etc etc, with funny shapes, even scented gel pens (I know you can't actually bring those to school, but they're fun, and that's what parties are about). I once bought some nice "secret message pens" with UV lamps at Dollar$tore (yes, they spell it that way).

The party could have the form of a "day" with a series of "lectures" in different subjects.

Why not give away novels, and have a "literary" school party, maybe with a Hogwarts theme... Maybe include showing a filmed version of some classic book (but pick a good one! maybe something a bit older, that they haven't all already seen, Harry Potter is nice, but I bet these kids already know those films by heart...). As a Swede, Astrid Lindgren is a name that comes to mind.

Subjects like History, Geography or Biology could also become "lectures" in the form of films.

Gym class = disco, maybe with a dance lecture at the start (if you know somebody who is good at that). (last part of party)

(That subject where you learn how to cook, whatever it's called in English) could be a lesson in how to make a cake and cookies, etc for the party itself... (first part of party)

Math is a wonderful subject, where you could do creative things on themes such as M.C. Escher, fractals, or a treasure hunt ("This wall is the x axis, that wall is the y axis, a unit is this long, and the candy is hidden at the coordinates 21.3, 7.4...."). Possible gifts could include a sudoku book.