Birthdays!!

[mom-in-alberta]

Oooh, I feel a little lame-o now, because we usually just do cupcakes and the birthday song!

[Inspired by Reggio]

Oooh, I feel a little lame-o now, because we usually just do cupcakes and the birthday song!

LOL - not lame kids do not NEED a big ole bash to enjoy their birthday ... I do not go all out in the decorations or anything - couple balloons at the front door and a reusable birthday banner and I bought one of those reusable 'birthday hat crowns' with candles on top that they get to wear if desired - takes me 2 minutes in the morning tops to 'decorate' but the kids love it ... my kids usually help to pick out the menu each Friday anyway so allowing a child to have the 'whole day' to pick is not a biggie and we generally vote on where to go for morning outings so it is specially only in that the birthday kid gets the ONLY vote

So in reality the only 'extra' I do is the decoration of the front door to let everyone know we have a birthday today and helping the kids to make a 'group birthday card' at creative art time one day that week.

I USE to do more ... use to ask parents to give me their 'birth story' upon enrollment with digital copies of photos of their birth and I would create a 'Birthday book' for everyone in the program to be in our book nook to 'celebrate' the kids anytime they showed interest and than I would read the birthday child's story at group time on their actual Birthday and I would create a Happy Birthday bristol board with the Happy Birthday banner across the top and the kids 'birth picture' photo and than daycare parents were supposed to help their kids record 'all the things we love about Birthday Child' on it during arrival or departure the week of their birthday as a keepsake ... however more and more it was ME doing this with their children and it became too much for the 'value' that was returned on it - so I weaned it out of the program over the years.