Cardboard Paper Wings + a Back-to-School Dinner

Summer is flying away and it’s time to get get set for another school year. In actuality I really love this time of year (if not for mourning summers end). It’s full of promise, new beginnings, slight signs of crispy fall on it’s way…and lots of fresh smelling school supplies! We have a tradition of having a Back-to-School Dinner with a theme that gets the kids back into the swing of things school wise with a bit a encouragement looking forward. This year our Back-to-School theme was “Knowledge Gives You Wings”.

I made each child a set of cardboard paper wings and placed them on the table before our dinner. This year I also thought it would be fun to present them with their new clothing, backpacks and supplies at the table as well.

They loved it! And after trying on their clothing each of them jumped out of the bathroom a new school-year older! And we all celebrated each child’s progressions saying things like “what! how can you be a 4th grader?!! get back in the bathroom and rewind time already! I can’t handle you growing up so old!” Fits of giggles and proud grins were the result. I think we found ourselves an new tradition. We then finalized it all with a dinner (cauliflower mac n cheese, my kids absolute favorite, thanks to Jessica Seinfeld) and finished it off with a cake.

At the dinner we talked about what the phrase “Knowledge Give You Wings”. Little O was mostly excited about the possibility of learning how to make actually real life wings for himself and like the idea that the more he knew, more more he could do. We also had the children write or draw one thing that they hoped to learn this year – which was very revealing and sort of hilarious (like AJ really wanted to learn how to be the Easter Bunny’s apprentice. Who knew?!).

But by far the biggest hit was the cardboard paper wings. All of my kids were crazy about them. And best part – super easy to make.

To make the wings you’ll need:

• Large sheet of cardboard (to tape two together at the center of the wings)
• paper/card stock in the color of your choice (or poster board which is what we used for the largest black wings)
• ribbon to tie the wings on
• scissors & a utility knife

Making the wings:

1. Fold your large sheet of cardboard in half and draw one side of the wing onto it. Using a utility knife and a self healing mat (or strong scissors) cut out that one side leaving the center of the wings on the fold.
2. Trace that one side of the wing onto the side of your folded cardboard and cut out the other side of the wings.
3. Cut out feather shapes from your card stock and glue onto your cardboard wings starting at the bottom.
4. Continue gluing all the feathers on from the bottom all the want to the top. Trim any excess from the top
5. To wear the wings I simply cut a long strip of ribbon and criss-crossed it the formation above in the drawing and hot glued onto the cardboard just at the criss-cross section. l then added some duct tape on top for extra-reinforcement.

The kids had so much fun playing and dancing with their wings and I loved capturing special sister-brother moments such as this.

On Mimi: Sweetes little Alice Ames Blossom Top and Short in black, thrifted shoes

On the boys: Target clothing and Coverse sneakers