Graduation Luau

As the school year winds to a close we want to send our 5th graders off in style. At our school we host a 5th grade Graduation Luau, it is a tradition that they all look forward to. Some games, dancing, food and fun with friends on the last day of school. A great tradition to say goodbye Elementary school and Hello Middle school!

We start off by transforming the cafeteria into a tropical luau. This is no small feat! This is definitely where you want to get all of your parent volunteers involved. Schedule them to come in the day before your party and give them specific tasks to help make decorating a breeze. We found it helpful if we had 2 people that coordinated all of the other volunteers. We started off by decorating the windows, adding a beach backdrop and some aqua paper we were able to transform our school cafeteria to a tropical beach.

We used green tropical leaf fadeless paper to wrap the large poles in the center of our cafeteria. We added a few Tiki masks and some colorful paper flowers. Colorful inflatable palm trees , a tropical directional sign and other tropical decor helped set the mood. Colorful luau welcome banners are posted at the doors to greet our 5th grade guests.

Setting up the food tables were a breeze with the rolls of tablecloths. We used several different ones to vary the patterns. We accented with the grass table skirts.

 A few of our must have paper products: tropical plates, napkins in shades of hot pink, lime green,  and turquoise. We even included a few embossed napkins with our school logo as a keepsake.

Once the cafeteria was decorated and started looking more like a luau we added in a few fun games. The kids would visit different table top games, play and win a prize to add to their treat bags. They loved doing this the most! Several of the 5th graders never left the gaming tables. We had games like tropical disc drop, pineapple ring toss, Tiki toss, Tiki bean bag toss, Mini Luau golf, Tropical paradise bean bag cornhole game to name a few. They had a blast playing the games with their friends.

The photo booth was another area the students had fun with they grabbed a few fun photo props and posed with their friends. To create it we used the green tropical leaf fadeless paper to make a backdrop. We added a few Tiki masks and some colorful paper flowers and tissue fans. Just add a few fun volunteers to manage all of the photo props and click a few pics and you have a great memory maker station that all of the fifth graders will enjoy!

As the students walked in to our tropical paradise they each got a Hawaiian lei. The music started and they were off to enjoy their friends one last time before the end of elementary school. This is such a fun last day of school activity for our 5th graders. I know they will treasure these precious friendships they have made as they start middle school.