The Easiest Student Birthday Gifts in a Real 2nd Grade Classroom
I have shared about my birthday bags before. I love them! They are a simple, special way to celebrate a students’ birthday, but they require so little from you.
I just got my birthday bags set up for the new school year, so I’m going to walk you through the process here!
Step One: Put together the bags.
Grab a stack of paper bags. I just use the brown lunch bags, but cute party bags, white bags, or whatever you already have will work! The key with this little birthday project is to spend as little as possible. So, don’t feel pressure to make all of the bags match, or to run out and buy anything specific.
To put the bags together, I print labels and staple them right onto the front of the bags. I leave them blank.
I printed/stapled 30 labels onto bags. I’m projected to have 24 kids, which is the max amount I can have. But, on the off chance that kids move away and new ones come in, or I mess a bag up, it’s good to have a few extras.
When a child has a birthday, I will pull a bag out of the stack, write that child’s name on them, and put them on their desk.
Step Two: Print Homework Passes
These you can sign right away, because they are all from you! I (again) made 30…just in case some get lost or ruined. These will go inside of the birthday bags as a little token from you on each student’s big day!
Step Three: Print/Copy the birthday cards.
The real key to the birthday bags is to bring all of the students in on the celebration. When it is someone’s birthday, our morning work for the day is to make that student birthday cards. The child who is having the birthday gets a ‘day off’ from morning work. They may free read or play a school-approved game or app on their chrome books.
As students finish making the birthday cards, they put them in the birthday bag on the child’s desk!
To prep for the year, I start by making 150 copies of the cards. I will need more than that, for every kid to make every kid a card…but it’s a good starting place.
Step Four: The Birthday Display
Now that you have the actual gifts out of the way, you need to ensure that you remember each kiddo’s birthday so you’re never scrambling to get their bag out!
I make the simplest birthday display I can think of. I simply print a page for each month of the year with the name of the month on the top of the page. On each monthly page, I write any child’s name who has a birthday that month, along with the date of their birthday.
For example, for August I may write:
Jameson - 8
Lily - 12
Rylan - 25
I can see, in order, which dates in August we have birthday. I keep this hung up right next to my date on the board, so we can see as we’re changing the date each afternoon which birthdays we have coming up! I also copy birthdays over to our class calendar at the beginning of each month.
And that’s it! A simple display, a simple gift, and minimal time and money spent!
If you want to snag the birthday cards and birthday display signs already made, you can grab the resource here!
