Back To School Dinner

First Day of School Dinner Ideas -start a new tradition with your kids, surprise them with a back to school dinner on the first day of school.

I’m so excited to share our first day of school dinner ideas with you.  It’s become a tradition at our house to surprise my girls with a special dinner when they get home from school on their first day and hear all about their new class.

Miniature School

Weeks ago when I was out shopping I noticed a few miniature school supplies at a party store, and thought how much my girls would love them. My youngest daughter loves playing school with her stuffed animals. I started collecting little mini paint sets, tape, crayons and markers over the last few weeks.

This gave me the idea to make our first day of school dinner into a back to “stuffy” school with a few of the girls stuffed animal “students”. Once I got started, I couldn’t help myself, it just got cuter and cuter. 😉

Free Back To School Printables

I found some great back to school free printables at Dimmple Prints and Tatertots and Jello and used them to make a pretty place setting.

Then I had the idea to shrink the printables by 50% and make the a miniature stuffed animal version too.

I cut down a matching paper napkin to make the stuffy napkins, and used a little crab apple to match the big ones. The cutlery and plates are from IKEA and made for dolls. The little cups are actually plastic shot glasses, and I cut down the straws to match ours.

Perfect for our little stuffy friends.

First Day of School Dinner and Mini Dinner Ideas

Then I thought it would be fun to make a mini version of dinner too.

I made a salad with cucumbers and tomatoes. For the mini version, I bought baby cucumbers, and used cherry tomatoes. I love how it turned out, next to our regular sized salad.

We had pizza, so I just used some bagel bites as a mini version for the stuffys.

The girls even filled the stuffy’s glasses with water, and crushed ice for stuffy sized ice cubes.

Dessert and Mini Dessert

For dessert, since we had a bit of an apple theme happening, we made apple pie -regular size and mini too.

I used store bought pastry to make it really easy and even made a large and mini little back to school pick with the printables.

The girls were so excited about it all. And the stuffed animals said it was the best dinner they’d had in ages. 😉

Playing School

After dinner we took all the new mini school supplies down to the toy room and set up a little classroom.

Maddie was so excited to put up the abc’s (found at the dollar store), set up her desk and chalk board, and get her stuffed animals seated on the carpet for story time!

I always say life is what we make it, so we may as well make it a party! I hope my girls always remember this one. Hoping your first day of school was great too.

With first day of school dinner ideas like this one, life really is a party!

More First Day Of School Dinner Ideas

You might also like our Back to School Dinner 2019 here.

Also check out our Back To School Dinner 2018 here.

You might also enjoy our Back To School Dinner 2017 here.