First Day of School Dinner

First Day Of School Dinner: celebrate back to school with a family dinner, with school themed decorations, and delicious menu ideas.

Jump to:

• Vintage Inspired Back To School Table
• Back To School Place Settings
• Dinner Menu
• More Back To School Ideas 

It’s become a lovely family tradition for us to have a special first day of school dinner -just the four of us, to celebrate, and hear all the details of the day.  I hope your inspired by all our first day of school dinner ideas.

Check out last years here, and the year before that here. My youngest kept asking me over the weekend if we were having a first day of school diner this year, and I tried to give vague answers like “we’ll see, I’m not sure if we’ll do it again this year” to help keep a bit of surprise in the air.  I set it all up while they were at school, and when they got home they saw the table all prepared.

Vintage Inspired Back To School Table

I’d been collecting some fun little things to use for the past month or so.  I filled the centre of the table with lots of fun school supplies, all with a bit of a vintage feel.

At the end of the room, a little "first day" banner, and some first day of school photos from over the past few years, printed in black and white and hung on some baker's twine with mini clothespins.

The globes were some I’ve found at garage sales over the last year.  And what says “back to school” more than a big container of apples.

I also used some old books, and some pretty flowers from the garden.

The little metal school bus is one Paige received as a baby, and I keep it around to make an appearance at back to school each year.  I also picked up a few fall scented candles -apple pie and cinnamon buns.

Back To School Place Settings

I had fun with the place settings.  These sweet little bags held our cutlery and napkins, and the giant paper clips were a fun touch too.

The place cards are chalkboard gift tags, held by some pretty school themed clothespins.

In the bottles, we had apple cider, and tied on some pretty paper straws with some ruler ribbon.

Dinner Menu

For dinner we had a yummy soup with lots of veggies.  It's a favourite of ours and you can find the recipe for the Tortellini and Italian Sausage soup here.

And, in these sweet lined paper bags, nice crusty rolls to dip in our soup.

For dessert, we always have something apple flavoured.  This year we had our fun apple truffle pops -see how I made them here and easy apple turnovers.

We had a great time celebrating another new school year together.  Can’t believe how quickly they are growing up, so thankful to be building memories with them!

Hope the first day was a good one at your house.  With a first day of school dinner, life really is a party!

More Back To School Ideas 

You might also like our Back To School Free Printables here.

Also check out another Back To School Dinner here.

You might also enjoy our Back To School Party Ideas here.