I love birthdays!

Who doesn't love a good birthday?

Well yesterday, this sweet boy turned 5! 

And since this was the first classroom birthday of the school year, I thought I would share how I celebrate each child's special day in my classroom.

First, I like to have everything out and ready to go the afternoon before; I hate rushing around in the morning.  So I laid all of his birthday items out before I leaving the day before.

  

Going clockwise, the items are: a birthday book, a birthday straw, fun birthday sunglasses, and a birthday sticker.

I love this birthday book!

I printed one copy of the cover, the birthday boy gets to color this page, and made enough copies of the other page for each student in my class.

Click here to get a copy yourself!  Oh, and did I mention it's free?!

 

The download includes two color covers, in case you don't have time for your birthday kiddo to color their own.

Black and white covers for the birthday kiddo to color their cover, these are the ones I use.

There's a girl version and boy version.

And then the page for each student to complete.

I had my students draw a picture in the frame of what they wanted to give the birthday boy for his birthday.  Then I came around and wrote what they were drawing on the blank.  Students signed their name at the bottom.

Next up is his birthday sticker (from Creative Teaching Press) and his birthday flower.

I love these little flowers for several reasons. First, I make them in the summer and then write my kids' names and birthdays on the back at the beginning of the year, so they are a ready made birthday treats because the prep work is already finished.   

Check them out here!

 (swizzles straws from Walmart - 6 to a pack)

 (print off the flowers and laminate)

 (I tape the straw the back of each flower and then write my kid's names and b-days on the back)

 (Voila!  Finished product, cute and ready to go!)

BTW - I put rice in the container to hold the straws in place, it works awesome at holding the straws upright and makes it easy to move straws around!

They also make a nice little decoration for your classroom.  

And they are just stinkin' cute if I do say so myself!

Here is my treasure box and some fun birthday glasses I picked up at Old Navy forever ago.

My treasure box is a sturdy cardboard chest from Hobby Lobby.  I painted it metallic gold and hot glued jewels onto it.  My kids love it!

I made this thing before I ever got my first teaching job, so it is over 9 years old and is showing its age.  Several of the jewels have fallen off and I've just been too lazy to glue them back on but that doesn't bother the kids at all.

Usually, my birthday kiddo will bring in cupcakes as a treat.  So after we are all good and sugared up, we sing to the birthday kiddo.

We sing regular Happy Birthday or the Happy Birthday Cha-Cha (you just twist your hips as you say cha-cha-cha after each line of the song).  I let the birthday boy pick which version he wanted, so we all sang the regular Happy Birthday song.

Then he got to pick a treat out of the treasure box!  He picked play-doh and the other kids were dying to see what he picked out.

Time to work on our birthday books!

Here's the birthday boy hard at work on his cover page.

Even though it wasn't their birthday, the other kids got really into their pictures.  They were asking the birthday boy about things he liked to play with and what his favorite colors were.  So thoughtful!

If you've ever taught kindergarten, you know that the beginning of the year includes a lot of one color stick figure drawings.  I can't wait to see how they improve as the year goes on.

When the kids were finished, I put all the pages together into a book.  Sometimes I tie the book together with ribbon or twine, but this was the last half day of our transition into kindergarten and our time was a little limited.  So I just stapled the corner of the book.

I love this robot picture!

And this treehouse!   How cute!

My kids loved celebrating the birthday yesterday.  So of course they were thrilled when they found out that today was another birthday!

Two birthdays in a row!

Today this sweet little girl turned 5 as well! 

Now all my classroom kiddos are 5 (or 6).

Our next birthday isn't until September 19th and I am just fine with that.  

Two birthdays the first week we stayed all day at school was quite enough thank you.

Do you have any great ideas for celebrating birthdays in your classroom?  I'd love to hear them!