Birthday Banner

I think birthdays (or half birthdays) in the classroom are a wonderful thing. I don't go over the top to celebrate or take up more than five minutes for the birthday kid, but I like to do small things to make them feel special. I try to remember a few days in advance how excited they are for their birthday. On the big day, I try to call them "birthday boy/girl" at least a few times. A few months ago, I thought of another thing I could do to make it just a little more special.
Last year, I was cleaning out my drawer that holds all my (dozens of) banners during recess. Some of my adorable girls were helping out and they saw a store bought birthday banner that some of my students bought me my first year of teaching. They got really excited because it just so happened to be someone's birthday on that very day! The girls grabbed it and hung it up on the back whiteboard. That got me thinking...
What if I made a cuter banner to hang up on a kid's birthday (or the school day in which the child was being celebrated)? Any teacher could do that and hang it up in the classroom, but what if I hung it up outside of the classroom so that any passer by would see that someone was having a birthday in my classroom, just to casually announce it to the world? And so my birthday banner was born. It took a while to make the gold dangly pieces because I didn't have the exact type of material that I would have liked, but in the end, it may just be my favorite banner I have ever made. (And that's saying something.)
I love the glitter lettering. I love the shape of the letters. I love the gold tassels. I love the paper that looks just a bit like it has birthday confetti on it. (I was even going to add pompoms to the point of each banner piece, but I thought that might be going a bit overboard...)
I love it.
On either side of my doorway at school, I will permanently put up a couple of clothespins (with gold stars on them) so that assembly and removal of the banner will be a piece of cake. In fact, I'll probably give the job of hanging the banner to my students. Because students like to be helpful and stand on chairs and hang things up. (Also, if I forget...someone else can take the blame.)

p.s. Do you love the wall? That has been the great project this summer for my husband and me. We have painted everything except for the tall wall towering over the stairs.
Also, yesterday I talked about what I do with all of those paper scraps I get while making these projects.

Linking up

Birthday Box

Many years ago, I received this awesome box. I loved that box. I kept all my favorite notes and awards in that box. I re found it the other day. After glancing at everything, I admit, I tossed it all. I can just tell my future children about all my awesome 4H ribbons.

Once I found the box, I knew I would have to use it in my classroom somehow. There was only one slight problem with it. Do you see the problem?

Yup. In the bottom corner of the box, something...did something. It looks absolutely gross. It really is not that bad. (Although because of this gunk that ate away at the paper, you can see that the box is made of wood.)

I really could not think of anything to do with it. I did not want to have to commit to something that I may only use this next year. I thought of something I know for sure I will be doing year after year after year. Birthdays! I grabbed some vinyl and cut out some cute pink vinyl for the top.

For the inside, I carefully cut out paper that matched perfectly with the teal and purple color scheme. I decided to go with a quote from my favorite birthday song. (Once I cut out the light blue, I realized I didn't actually want that color; I had been planning on doing yellow. Ugh. I hate to wasted it. All 3 inches.)

This is the bottom part that looked disgusting. Pretty nicely covered up.

And a look inside the entire thing.

I like it. Last year for birthdays, all I did was write them a letter, give them a pencil, and bind a book full of birthday wishes from their peers. I think I may have to up the celebration stuff this year. I will put a variety of birthday present choices in the box and let them choose.