How to Decorate a First Day of School Pencil Pennant Cookie - Customizable for Any Grade!

Get ready to kick off the school year with a fun and festive cookie design! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to decorate a pencil-shaped pennant flag cookie that’s perfect for celebrating the first day of school. Whether it says “First Day of 3rd Grade” or any other grade level, this sweet treat makes a thoughtful gift for students, teachers, or parents capturing those back-to-school memories. I’ll walk you through each step, from outlining the pencil details to piping the custom message, so you can personalize it for any classroom milestone. Let’s get started!

Pencil Pennant Flag Cookie Cutter

Added to the shop for the back-to-school season is this school pencil pennant flag cookie cutter.

This cookie cutter will fit in our 3" x 8" cookie box, as well as our 3" x 12" bag sleeves.

Template for the School Pencil Pennant Flag Cookie

To help with the decorating process, I made a PDF template for all the lettering for each of the grades for this flag cookie design.

Click the link below for the downloadable template PDF file.

• Cookie Templates for All Grades for Pennant Flag

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Cookie Decorating Process

Decorating cookies always starts with a good royal icing recipe. Here is my favorite royal icing recipe for cookie decorating.

For this pencil pennant cookie, you will need the following suggested colors:

• Yellow icing (I mixed Americolor Egg Yellow with Americolor Gold.)
• Eraser Pink icing (I mixed Americolor Deep Pink with Americolor Ivory.)
• Brown icing (I used Americolor Espresso.)
• Gray icing (I used just a tiny touch of Americolor Ash.)
• Tan icing (I used Americolor Ivory.)
• White icing (I used Americolor Bright White.)

Step 1

Begin by filling in every other section of the pennant flag. I started with the eraser section, the yellow flag section, and the lead tip section. Let this icing set.

Then fill in the remaining two sections. Let this base layer dry for about an hour.

Step 2

Once the base layer had time to dry a little, it's time to add the lettering. To make things easier, I made projector templates for all the grades, including "Preschool" and "Kinder" for kindergarten.

Using a cookie projector, I screenshot the grades I was interested in and hand-piped the letters onto the flags.

Just for reference, for the "first day of" I used a #1 Tip. For the white grade letters I used a #2 Tip. For the final flag outlines, I used a #1.5 Tip.

Step 3

The last step is to outline the wavy flag detail, as shown below.

School Pencil Flag Cookie Decorating Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video I put together below.

To package this cookie, I first sealed each cookie in one of our clear heat-sealable cello bags to keep them fresh and protected. (I use the 3" x 12" size and cut off the excess.)

There's a few ways to package these flag cookies and here's my two recommendations. The first is using just a cello clear bag, but adding a notebook bow and composition book tag to complete the look.

A second option is placing the cookie in a 2.75" x 8" clear cookie box. I used a composition book cookie backer to make the colors of the cookie pop! I finished off the presentation with a "Happy First Day" notebook tag.

I hope this tutorial helped you create a fun and memorable cookie to celebrate the first day of school! This pencil pennant design is easy to customize for any grade, making it a great personalized gift for students or teachers. If you’re looking for more back-to-school cookie cutters, be sure to check out the full collection of cutters and tutorials in our shop. Happy decorating, and best of luck this school year!