Beyond the Birthday Display: 9 Easy Ways to Make Birthdays Special in the Classroom
I love celebrating my birthday, but my real joy comes from planning surprises for my loved ones on their birthdays. I'll admit I’m a little extra when it comes to birthday surprises - I spend weeks every year planning, designing, and making custom cakes each year for my daughter’s birthday (if you follow me on IG you already know this). By the end of the process each year, I feel a little silly for not just buying a storebought cake, but the look on her face when she sees it makes it all worth it. She talks about her cake all year long, and it has become such a special memory for her.
If you’re a little extra like me, being a teacher is a great gig for us, since we have about twenty+ opportunities to be a little extra for our kiddos. Now I’m not saying you need to make and design a custom cake for each of your kids - that would be crazy - but we can bring that same energy as we celebrate the kids in our class.
If you're a fan of The Office, you know that Michael Scott loves celebrating his birthday as well as everyone else's. Sometimes he takes his surprises a little too far, but his heart is always in the right place. He wants to make his employees feel loved, and that is the vibe I want us to bring to our classrooms. I hope you find some new ways to enjoy celebrating your kiddos, and I hope you can bring some Michael Scott energy to it as you do!
Don’t feel like you need to use all of these ideas - actually, I’d recommend against it. Pick your favorite(s) and leave the rest! I love to use the “decide-once” principle in my life as often as possible. Have you heard of this? I first came across this idea in the book, “The Lazy Genius Way” by Kendra Adachi. The idea is that you decide once how you will handle a situation, and then it relieves the decision fatigue that wears on so many of us over time. For example, decide once on a housewarming gift that you’re going to give each of your friends when they move (a bottle of wine and hand towels), or decide once on a meal that you’re going to serve every time you host friends. I encourage you to decide once on how you’re going to celebrate birthdays in your classroom and then put it on autopilot!
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Birthday Hat
How cute are these birthday hats?! It is a fun way to make your students feel like you are celebrating them all day long on their big day. You can present the hat as the student is walking through the door (most of them act bashful, but you can tell they love it) or have it waiting on their desk for them in the morning with a handwritten note. Something like this always comes with the risk of being a distraction to learning. However, I find that as long as you set the behavioral expectation at the beginning of the day, most students tend to handle it well.
Birthday Chair Cover
The birthday chair cover is another fun and easy way to make students feel special on their birthday. The night before a students’ birthday, slip the cover over their chair. Everyone (including me) gets excited on their birthday, so it's fun to do small things to acknowledge their day and celebrate all day long! This option from Etsy is ADORABLE, but a little pricey. If you are crafty, I don't think it would be too difficult to make yourself with some felt, pillow stuffing, pom-poms, and a hot-glue gun! What I love about this idea is that it is another simple, decide-once, kind of thing.
Birthday Door Hanger
This birthday door hanger would be perfect to hang on the outside of your classroom door to let everyone who walks by know that you are celebrating a birthday that day! It includes a little chalkboard space for you to write your students’ name on it, and a twine hanger that can be hung from a 3M hook on your classroom door. This is a listing from Etsy, but it’s another one that you crafty teachers could make at home if you choose to!
Birthday Certificate
This one is the classic - I remember getting these on my desk every year for my birthday during elementary school. They're simple, easy, and are a way to give students. a little “keepsake” to take home to show their parents. You can also prep all of your birthday certificates at once when you receive your class list at the beginning of the year, file them in birthday-order in a folder, and you’re ready to go. I also recommend adding a blank birthday certificate to each of your “new student” bags (I create these each year for any students who move in during the year), so that their birthdays aren’t accidentally overlooked.
Birthday Display
I know this post is titled “Beyond the Birthday Display,” but I think birthday displays are a crucial part of our classroom decor! I just don’t think they should be the only way we celebrate our students, ya know?
Okay, so why are birthday displays so important? Years ago, I read a post by Jen Jones about how students feel a stronger sense of community and belonging in their classroom if they see their name at least 5 times throughout the room. This got me thinking about all of the classrooms I’ve decorated over the years and whether my students saw their names 5 times throughout. And honestly, I don’t think they did. To save myself time, I always labeled mailboxes, cubbies, and pencil cases with student numbers instead of names. Of all of the changes we can make to our classroom environment to support our students, this one seems like such a no-brainer!
A birthday display can help students feel seen and recognized during those nerve-wracking first days of school (what kid doesn’t love their birthday?!). I really love these three displays. since each students’ name is printed on a separate piece. At the end of the year, they’ll get to keep their ice cream scoop, sushi roll, or macaron (believe me, this is a BIG deal!).
Birthday Chant
Students love chants, and this one is no exception! I teach this at the beginning of the year, along with my classroom management call and responses. If I know the student brought birthday treats, I usually wait and do this right before eating. I use this chant in place of singing "Happy Birthday" because, let's face it, no one likes singing that song or having it sung to them! If the student didn't bring treats, I usually sing them to acknowledge their birthday right away during our morning meeting. You can grab this birthday chant slide down below!
Birthday Breakfast
I have never personally done this, but some of my colleagues do and love it! The premise is that instead of celebrating each birthday with treats individually, you celebrate once a month. On birthday breakfast day, instead of a morning meeting, they have a breakfast to celebrate all of the birthdays that occurred within the month. The difference between this and bringing traditional birthday treats is that any family can sign up to contribute every month, but they are never required! I like this idea because there is always plenty of food, and no one feels pressure to contribute if they are not financially able. Of course, the student is still celebrated on his or her actual birthday-- just without the treats! This idea doesn't work for every classroom or every group of kids, but I've heard of upper elementary teachers succeeding with it!
Picture With Candle
This is an idea I started doing my first year of teaching and will probably always continue because it is such a crowd-pleaser! I buy a pretty cake topper with the number that the child is turning. Luckily, in most circumstances, the kids will all celebrate the same birthday, so you should only have to buy one or two. Keep in mind, you may want to buy a year above, in case any student in your class has been retained.
On their birthday, have them hold up the number, and take a picture with a polaroid camera, and write the date. I take two photos-- one for the student to keep and one for me to display on a bulletin board. That way, by the end of the year, all students are displayed on the wall. I also take a picture of them with my phone and email it to their parents that morning to tell them how glad I am that I get to spend their birthday with them. If you don't already have a polaroid camera, it is unnecessary to buy one just for this. I just happened to have one, and the students love using it. However, I was shocked by how much I used it once I got it!
Birthday Writing Prompt
Sometime throughout the week of the student's birthday, I give them a birthday writing prompt to complete. Depending on the grade level, you can either provide them with sentence starters that will prompt them to write about their life right now and who they hope they become, or if you teach upper elementary, you can give them a more broad prompt to promote creativity. Essentially, you want them to write about their life at the current moment and their dreams for the future. I also ask them to decorate or illustrate the page and add some color because I like to laminate it and send it home for their parents to see on the night of their birthday.
Summer Birthday Ideas
Anyone with a summer birthday knows how much of a bummer it can be at school. You celebrate your friends all year long, but are often forgotten since you’re not at school for your birthday. As a teacher, I decided to be very intentional about making my summer birthday kiddos know that they are special too! During the back-to-school night, I always tell the parents and their students that they can pick a day either during the first month of school or the last month of school to celebrate. However, my favorite thing is finding time during the last weeks of the school year to pull kids aside and have them make birthday wishes for their summer birthday friends. I then compile the snippets into a video and set a reminder on my phone to email them to the student's parents on their actual birthday. I'm not going to lie, it is a lot of work, but it is so worth it! They are always so surprised and appreciative.
I hope you have found one or two ideas that you can take away from this post to make birthday celebrations special in your classroom. Don’t forget - decide once and leave the rest of the ideas behind! If you’re looking for a new way to display birthdays in your classroom, check out the displays below! Click each image to shop.
