Preparing for the Polar Express

Who doesn't love this story?  I have always heard about teachers having a special event or even an entire school having a Polar Express day and wanted to join in all the fun.  This year our entire school will be having a Polar Express day.  Thanks to my friend Kourtney over at Mrs. Payton/s Precious Kindergartners I am almost ready for the big day.  I had the basics prepared, pajama day, show the movie to the whole school, bells and hot chocolate, but I knew I wanted more.  I knew I wanted it to be magical and memorable.  When I asked for inspiration, Kourney shared all of her photos with me.  My head was spinning.  So much to do, so little time.  She wrote all about their schools' Polar Express Day, you must look at all the great photos she shared.

For the bells, I had a coworker scour the Dollar Stores each week until we had 305 bells.  Two of our fabulous parent volunteers tied all the ribbons on for us. Next came the bags and labels.  Kourtney was kind enough to share her label file with me, but my computer is being fussy with fonts- so I just created my own, using hers as an inspiration.  Next, I loaded all the bags with the bells. The bags I found at our .99 cent store.  They were 10/$1/00.  This is how I spent my Saturday night.

I'm making a banner to go over the doorway that will read The Polar Express.  I used my Cricut to cut letters out of dark blue poster board.  I also voluntold a colleague to pick up some cardboard tubes from the carpet store.  We will be wrapping with white paper and red streamers.  I wrapped a few empty boxes to decorate the stage with.  We also have a HUGE roll of white butcher paper.  When I say huge I'm not kidding.  It is about 4 feet in diameter. I'm using it to create giant snowflakes and will drape it over boxes to create a snow themed background behind the movie screen.  I'm copying almost every thing Mrs. Payton's school did (with her permission of course).

 Isn't it pretty

I can't wait to share all the pictures with you next weekend.  I am however going to share the files I made.  In it are different ticket options and tags for the bells.  You can download it for free from TpT.  I still need to tie the tags on my bells,