Celebrations in My Room

Day Nineteen and the Big Time Blogging Challenge. 

What holiday do I enjoy most celebrating with my students?

These past three years have been challenging, rewarding and full of celebrations. Each year the celebrations were different. Only one was consistent.

Birthdays!

I love celebrating birthdays! My birthday, the people in my family, my friends, my students.

Growing old is not a right. It is a privilege that not everyone gets and needs to be celebrated.

And at least once a year I want to feel like the sun really does revolve around me (and maybe some other grown ups and kids do also), so having a birthday celebration is a MUST.

Here's what we did last year (it has evolved a bit):

**We all joined at the front of the class, with the birthday child sitting in the middle on a chair.

**In our best singing voices we sing a sweet birthday song called On the Day You Were Born by Red Grammer, from the album Hello World! The song seriously brings tears to my eyes.

**The kids head to their seats and work on birthday cards. I use this fun printable from Christina Bainbridge. Birthday Book While they work I play the whole Hello World! album. They love singing along and they sound so lovely! 

**The birthday child passes out the treats.

**After every one has been served, the birthday kid has the first bite, and then we can all enjoy the treat.

**When all the birthday cards are written and colored, I put them into a keepsake book for the birthday child to take home. (A really fun cover comes with the PDF from Mrs. Bainbridge.)

That's it! A fun 1/2 hour. Now, I'm off to read what other celebrations my friends have written about.