A red carpet theme party graduation ceremony for 6th graders with a ton of DIY graduation ideas!
In May my oldest graduated from 6th grade… sniff, sniff! I know some people think that 6th-grade graduation is a silly thing and I never had one growing up, but when it came down to it, these kids had been together for the past 7 years and this marked the end of the sweet elementary school days.
This was the longest they will ever be in the same school and with a small group of classmates.
We had an amazing class of students and parents and we wanted to make this time something to remember and extra special for everyone.
The kids talked about it and decided on a red carpet theme party graduation ceremony.
6th Grade Promotion Ceremony Ideas
A few of us split the big tasks up and I had fun making the red carpet theme party decorations. It took months of planning but the whole ceremony came together beautifully.
The kids and a few parents worked for months on putting together a medley of favorite songs that they performed at the end – so cute and fun!
Other parents made an amazing slideshow presentation of pictures from the past 7 years along with the first day of kindergarten and 6th-grade pictures of each student. They also interviewed all the teachers who left them with some advice or a fun memory. Very sweet to see all the kids grow up and they loved seeing all their previous teachers.
Red Carpet Themed Decorations
For decorations, I wanted to keep it pretty simple plus we didn’t have a very big budget.
We kept it easy with the food and only had cupcakes and drinks. We used stars and red, black and gold color scheme.
The star balloons were all bought at the Dollar Tree. The red paper fans were easy to make and tutorial can be found here.
If you’d like to make your own custom graduation napkins and paper caps, make sure to read my post on Cricut graduation party ideas.
You could also easily add custom water bottles with this free graduation water bottle label.
One wall was titled “A Star is Born” and was decorated with all the kids’ baby pictures. I made easy DIY film strip paper decorations (click here for tutorial) that I attached the pictures to.
The back wall was decorated with portraits of all the kids.
I had each student fill in a form about where they see themselves in the future starting with “I will…” and hung it under their cool pictures. Tutorial for easy and fun portraits here.
The red carpet was borrowed from a parent. Some of the rope and posts were used a few years before so I changed them a little bit but luckily we didn’t have to spend much money on it!
The gold posts were made out of plungers and cardboard cylinders (like from wrapping paper) both spray painted gold. The red rope was plastic leis cut and stuffed in the pole and topped with foam balls covered with gold foil.
Dollar Tree didn’t even ask me why I was buying 20 plungers, but it felt a little weird!
I wanted to make the NSE 2016 look like the Hollywood sign but the set up didn’t allow for it with the screen. So, they were pinned up on the sides. The letters were cut out of poster board and spray painted with glitter gold paint.
Each student got their own “Star Award” trophy picked by their teacher.
It was very sweet and thought out on his part and the students were so excited to hear what award they were getting. It was a surprise for everyone!
I also put up a simple photo booth station. I just got a few gold tinsel banners, cut out some photo props with my Cricut, added some frames, and masks and necklaces from the Dollar Store to use and the kids had fun with it! **
Update** I have a FREE file of DIY photo props.
It was a great and memorable night filled with laughter, reminiscing, and tears too! After months of planning it was great to see that it all was worth all the work.
Now if she can just get through the two years of middle school so easily…
Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day!
