Birthday Celebration

 One of the most magical things about Ambrose is our celebration of each child, in so many different ways. We may not have a holiday party or Halloween parade, but we find ways each day to focus on what makes each child special and celebrate their success, growth, milestones, and anything else we can think of. Birthdays are no exception.

Today a very special person is celebrating her birthday. Ms. Lisa! Our friend CF also had a birthday (right before school started) so we decided to celebrate them together.

During our morning meeting I asked friends if they knew why today was special. Some informed friends knew right away what was special about today. I followed up with "how can we celebrate our friends?"

BAKE A CAKE! - H

BLOW OUT CANDLES! - JA

Make them a present. - CF

These are all amazing ways to celebrate, so we wondered: "is there something in our classroom we can use to make a special present?"

CF could hardly contain his excitement. "We can take the gems, wrap them in a straw and they can be our birthday crystals."

We ran with it. 

What could we use to make these?

CF went right to the shelf and found a very popular manipulative. 

Once we explored the gems, we realized there wasn't a good way to attach them to a straw. Someone suggested we make them into a necklace or bracelet. How could we use these to make something special, something on a string to decorate our branch?

CF was determined to use these gems and suggested a hole puncher. We tried it out. 

No luck. 

Ms. Lisa suggested we brainstorm other ideas of materials we could use. Instantly, several friends shouted out - BEADS!

Once we decided on a plan, a friend brought up that birthdays need cake. We, once again, put our heads together to figure out how to make a cake we could share with our classroom community. JB stepped up with a master plan. 

"We need boxes. This big, this big and this big. We can stack them up and put some of those tube things on the top like candles."

Maybe we need one this big. - H

Did you know there is a special space in our school full of materials we can use in our classroom. We made a list of materials we would need and set out on a journey to collect them. 

These have holes, we can put them on string! - CF/R

I see one! - E

Our jar was finally full so we moved onto materials for our box cake. 

That paint looks like chocolate. 

And the red is strawberry! - C

Once we were back in the room, we worked to set up some birthday celebration provocations. One area was dedicated to decorating the cake. 

It almost looks like real chocolate!

Ms. Lisa and CF sat at their own table to chose a very special gem. throughout the day each classroom friend took time to pick a special bead for each one and string it together. What we created was a classroom crystal we will hang on the branch above our meeting area. You can see from the smiles, this was the perfect way to celebrate our birthday friends!

A very happy, happy birthday to you both!

Let's take a pretend big bite!