Paper Pencil Goodie-Bag

So, before I made the felt Pencil Pouches to put surprises in for the kids, I made this pencil out of construction paper to fill with goodies. 

(And all of these Back-to-School "pencil" traditions to go along with the Pencil Cake I posted about yesterday)

Anyways, making the paper pencil was really easy, and you could easily fill it with goodies or notes or anything. :) 

Here's how to make one:

• Roll up a piece of yellow construction paper and tape it together. (I just used scotch tape)
• Cut out a pink strip of paper and roll it around the end of the pencil and tape it together. 
• Cut out a white (or any color) small strip of paper and tape it around the pencil next to the eraser.
• For the tip of the pencil:

• cut out a circle with white paper (a circle bigger than the size of the pencil)
• draw a big black circle in the center of the circle with marker or crayon (this is the lead)
• Cut a slit into the circle from the outside just to the middle of the circle
• Roll it together to make a cone shape and tape it together
• Then tape the cone onto the yellow paper.

• Put whatever you want inside the pencil: candy, snacks, supplies, notes, puzzle pieces, etc.
• Cut out a pink circle the same size as the pencil and tape it on the end of the eraser to seal the surprises inside.

Since I knew I was going to use the Pencil Pouches as goodie bags, I decided to use this paper pencil as part of our Family Home Evening lesson.

With the start of the new school year we decided to talk about being happy and smiling. I looked in a couple magazines and cut out a bunch of pictures of kids smiling. I taped them (double stick tape) to construction paper and placed them inside the paper pencil. 

So after we sang our song and said our prayer we had our lesson:

We talked about what makes us smile.

We talked about how smiling can help us and those around us to feel good.

We talked about how thinking about the good things we have can help us to smile and be happy.

We talked about why Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and what He has blessed us with so we can smile.

We also talked about how sometimes we are sad and don't want to smile.

But that when we help others, and think about all the wonderful things about our lives, we can be happy again.

:)