Birthday Bags and a No-Fuss Birthday Display

Celebrating classroom birthdays is the kind of thing that made me feel a lot of pressure when I first started teaching. I didn’t realize that my kids would be grateful for just any kind of acknowledgement. I didn’t know (for some reason) that I should plan to give them all identical things. I just didn’t know a lot of things. I placed wayyyy too much stock into how I celebrated birthdays.

In fact, my first year, I started the tradition of staying late the night before a students’ birthday and decorating that kid’s desk. It went over so well in August and September. And then October hit, and I had a birthday or two in my class every week. It was just how the chips fell. I was also in the midst of prepping report cards for the first time, hosting parent conferences, going to data team meetings, and trying to grade enough to meet my quarterly requirements for graded assignments. I. was. drowning.

And I realized that creating special decorations for each child’s birthday was just not a sustainable model. Sure, the kids wanted to be acknowledged on their birthdays, but WHY I felt like I needed to create banners with their names on them and cover their desks in confetti was just beyond me.

I made the terrible decision to change how I did birthdays mid-year. I do not recommend this. There were hurt feelings. I got parent emails that it wasn’t fair how I put so much effort into celebrating other kids’ birthdays, but then dropped off when it was their kid’s turn. And look, they were right. I should have never started off so ambitious! Bad teacher move.

DON’T BE LIKE ME. Start off with a simple birthday routine, and your kids will never know the difference. The nice thing about how birthdays and other special occasions are celebrated is that you set the bar. Your kids will go along with basically anything you say you’re going to do. Just don’t be wishy-washy. Decide what you’re comfortable with before the kids show up on day one, and when that first birthday rolls around…just do what you do. Don’t worry about what their teacher last year did, or if you’re doing “enough”. You have the autonomy to choose what works best for the season of life that you’re currently in!

Today, in case you’re needing some fresh ideas, I’d like to share with you a no-fuss birthday display and birthday routine that takes so little effort on your part, it’s not even funny.

BIRTHDAY DISPLAY

Here’s how this works. You take 12 sheets of paper, write the 12 months of the year on each one, and after you get your roster, your list all of the kids birthdays on the respective month pages.

So on January, you might list:

Christy-12 (because her birthday is on the 12th of January)

Liam-15

Robbie-22

And so forth. Do this for every month. You can laminate these pages so you can write with expo marker and clean it to re-use next year if you want to be very efficient.

Hang this birthday display on your white board or somewhere close to where you are going to daily interact, so you don’t miss it. For me, I had the date and the standards all displayed on the left-hand side of my white board, so I hung the birthday pages over there. I was fancy and put them on book rings so I could flip the pages when a new month began, but you don’t have to be that fancy.

PREP THE BIRTHDAY BAGS

So, over the summer, or in the days leading up to your first class birthday, print a bunch of labels that say “happy birthday” and stick them on the front of paper bags. Put these in your desk drawer or somewhere with easy access. Along with the paper bags, print a stack of blank birthday cards (or just put a stack of blank paper in there with them), and some homework passes or other coupons from you. Sign them all so they’re done.

WHAT HAPPENS ON A STUDENT’S BIRTHDAY?

Ok, so here is where I am going to blow your mind with the ease of this system. When a student’s birthday arrives, write “Happy Birthday (their name)!” really big on your whiteboard. Put an empty birthday bag on their desk, and put one of your homework passes inside. They can redeem it that night to have a homework-free birthday, or save it for another time. Write a note on the back of the homework pass if you want to be sweet about it.

On everyone else’s desk, lay the blank paper or birthday cards that you set aside. When your kids come in that morning, they will make a birthday card for the birthday kid. They can write a nice note, draw a picture, or both. When they’re done, they put it in the birthday bag. Now, the birthday kid has a whole collection of kind thoughts to begin their day, and you didn’t break a sweat!

Now, I’ve had years where I’ve done just the notes. I’ve also had years where I dropped in a pencil or a cute eraser or something else that I found in bulk in the Target Dollar Spot. This is up to you. If added extra things to the bag doesn’t stress you out, then by all means, please spice it up! But if you’ve had a YEAR, and you just really want this coming school year to be easier, then this is one thing you can take off of your plate. :)