In honor of my upcoming birthday, I am hosting a linky party about ways you celebrate birthdays in your classroom or at home!
In my classroom, I always have a birthday crown with the student's name on it placed on their desk for when they get there. I also give them a Happy Birthday pencil.
Then the rest of the class uses the Happy Birthday special note from my special notes pack to shower the birthday kiddo with lots of friendly love.
My school has a nutrition plan in order, so we are not supposed to have too many sweets. Try telling that to parents though. Often times we end up with cupcakes or cookies. What's one day of a little treat? I also have a peanut and egg allergy in my classroom, so everything has to be store bought with all of the ingredients labeled.
The birthday boy or gal is allowed to pick one friend to visit other teachers on the same floor with the leftover treats. Of course the other teachers love getting a sweet treat at the end of the day.
Finally we do the human birthday cake. The birthday friend picks a candle for each year of age. They form a circle around the birthday friend. The rest of the students form another circle around the candles. The candles walk in one direction and the cake part walks in the opposite direction while singing Happy Birthday. Once we sing twice, the birthday friend gets to blow out the candles (he taps each candles head and the fizzle down). Finally, the birthday friend cuts the cake (picks a spot around the outside circle to seperate two hands)
We have a lot of fun on birthdays! I'm curious to see what my firsties have planned for me this week. They all seem very excited to make me pick candles! They clearly don't realize there aren't even enough students in my class to make candles!!
How do you celebrate birthdays?
I love the way you celebrate birthdays!! If you don't mind I would love to use it next year with my firsties...love it!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Mireya
I think it is so important to honor our students on their special day! At my school, we have a strict NO sweets policy so there are no treats brought it, but I don't let that dampen our fun. My students sit in a circle and I pass a bear around the circle; each child in turn gives a compliment to the birthday child. Then we sing "Happy Birthday" twice - once normal and once in sign language. (As part of this, each child creates a "name sign" on his/her birthday that we use for the song.) Each birthday child gets a bag (plain white paper lunch bag decorated with stickers and made to look cute) filled with small gifts - a pencil, a notepad, an eraser, a small ball, a birthday sticker, etc - whatever i can find that is cheap. I stuff all of these at the beginning of the year and tack them to a bulletin board for decoration.
ReplyDeleteCamille
Mireya-Of course you can!
ReplyDeleteCamille-How awesome that you have the class give compliments! I think that is such a great idea! I also love the giving of some cheap goodies! Kiddos always love presents :)
Oh I like the sign language birthday song! I want to teach the Pledge of Allegiance to my students in sign language this year.
ReplyDeleteAlso I think the human birthday day is too cute! I'll only have 14 kids so sometimes I think I would have more candles than outside people!! :)
Magnificent Multiagers!
Jill-That's ok! You will just have a very tight fitting cake :)
ReplyDeleteI love the idea about the human cake! TOO CUTE!! Thanks for sharing your birthday ideas! I hope you have a Happy Birthday!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteA last admonition with respect to barters is that you must will to work quick. Most barkers go, quick, so advance beyond time and invest some energy completely looking at the trucks you think you might need to offer on. check cashing
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