An event that kept me very busy in term 4 was the preparation for Tegan’s Grade 7 Graduation. It ended up being a wonderful night and I think everyone was really happy with it. We were fortunate to have heaps of willing helpers from both Grade 7 and Grade 6 and it didn’t hurt that one of the Grade 7 families have their own sound and lighting business…
After meetings and many emails we narrowed down our theme to that of “Spotlight on the 7s of 2011″ with a strong empasis on the kids being the stars of the evening, and therefore a moviestar/hollywood theme to help portray that. The school colours are Maroon and Navy Blue (which is the SU world I used Bravo Burgandy and Night of Navy) with touches of Silver to jazz it all up a bit.
Here is a little overview of what we did:
For a start we made these tissue paper bows to go on the chairs. I had originally thought that they would sit on the edge of the chair but Lou suggested they sit at the back which looked heaps better. The stars hanging down are from the Stampin’ Up! star punch which is now sadly retired.
We also were loaned a few red carpets which really added to the “star” element for the kids.
We hired a Helium cylinder and I made the arch. The blue balloons are “link-a-loon”, they have a long bit on top of the balloon that you can use to tie to the knot of another balloon, thereby making a balloon chain. The helium keeps it elevated. I just tied the maroon balloons around each join, they are a smaller size balloon and are just filled with air. Balloon weights keep it ancored.
We also had balloon decorations on the food tables…
A couple of our families had access to great printing resources, you can see the class photos printed out in the back of this photo above, another family did this clapboard…
And also these stars, we had one for each of our 109 Grade 7 students:
Each of these stars were cut out, laminated and then cut out again, thank goodness for all those willing workers! We also had these smaller stars which were used at our entrance…
We had these stars on three railings, a few Mums and some of the students worked really hard at stringing these all up, it took ages but I think it is so effective.
We had thought that the outside area could be like a “green room”, where all the kids could hang out and eat with each other. The above photo shows their entrance to this area. The photos of either side were my idea, you know one of those ideas that you end up thinking “what was I thinking?” Anyway, they were very cool and everyone seemed to like them. Here is Tegan’s…
Another Mum (Robyn) and I headed up to the school and gathered a heap of props from the Music room, Robyn had also organised a lot of props herself. Robyn’s son came along as he is studing drama and was helping kids with their expressions. Our school chaplain, Glenn, took all the photos for us. I can’t show you the other photos as I don’t have permission but they were all so different and so awesome. Once the kids warmed up they really enjoyed themselves. The written part was something that each child contributed themselves. For some kids it was their favourite school memory, other others it was their favourite movies or friendships. After I wasted hours with various word processing dramas and printed them out Robyn put them all together and hung them around the auditorium. The kids all got to take them home at the end of the night.
Pictured above are the cakes that a school Mum was paid to make. Below are the labels I designed for the food trays…
I’ll be back with part 2!
