First Day of Homeschool Gift Basket

First day of homeschool basket with pencils, markers, crayons, play dough, stickers.

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This year I have decided to put together a first day of homeschool gift basket for my boys! I want to preface this with the fact that almost everything in the baskets are things that my boys needed for school anyway and each basket cost me less than $10. Anyway, I want their first day of school to be exciting and memorable, so I thought this would be a fun surprise for their first day! The following is what I put into each basket:

Basket with first day of school banner, stickers, play dough, ruler.

Needs:

I hit up the back-to school-sale at Target this year where I found several things. I usually keep our craft/art supplies in a community location (which I still will do) but I thought a personal supplies box would be special for my boys. I found these tin Spiderman boxes that hold a few supplies perfectly. I got them both the same because I knew they would each want Spider-Man, and I labeled the front with their names! I use this DYMO label maker for everything!

I wanted my boys to have a sense of ownership of their personal supplies so that they will take care of what they have and they will not fight over who has what. So in each box I put a box of crayons (that I found for 50 cents!), a box of markers, a few of our favorite pencils, and a glue stick! Like I stated earlier, these were all supplies they needed anyway, so I didn’t feel guilty for getting it all.

Spider-Man tin pencil cases, first day of school pennant, marker, crayons, pencils, glue.

Fun Fillers:

Next, I stopped by the dollar tree, or shall I say $1.25 tree now. They honestly have some great homeschool finds! This is where I found the gold basket to hold everything in. I love a good basket, so I know I will be able to reuse these afterwards for something else. I browsed the sticker section and was SO excited for what I found. My oldest Graham is obsessed with The Wild Kratts on PBS, and they had a Wild Kratts sticker/scene set! I snatched that up and then I also found a dinosaur themed one for my youngest. Lastly, I picked two things of multi-colored play dough to put into each of their baskets.

For the final touch I printed and laminated a cutesy ”Back to School” banner/pennant. I added a rod and ribbon I had on hand to the pennants to spice them up! These are going to be used for “First Day of School” pictures! I laminated them so that I can reuse them each year. I bought the template for these here off Etsy, but I’m sure you could make your own. On the front of each basket I added a small chalkboard (I also had on hand) with their names labeled on them so they would know who’s is who’s.

First Day of school black laminated pennant banners.

Like I stated earlier, I wanted my boys first day of homeschool to be fun and exciting. I want to make memories with them and create traditions we can do year after year. Hopefully this will be something they look forward to for years to come! I hope this gives you some inspiration for your own homeschool. Do you have any first day of homeschool traditions? I would love to here them in the comments!