Sunday, January 18, 2009

Lily's Birthday Walk

Lily's school honors each child's birthday with a very unique celebration. Her birthday was in December but because of the high number of December birthdays in her class and the holiday break her day was in January.

They call it "The Birthday Walk" and I think it's a great way to show each child how special they are. First, a candle is lit to represent the sun. Then papers with each month written on them are spread around the candle. The child is asked to hold a small globe of the earth. Her teacher, Cathy, then explains how the earth rotates around the sun and one revolution equals one year of her life.

As she walked one year around the candle-sun, Brian and I get to talk about that year. For example, for her newborn year we talked about how she slept so much. When she walked her second year we talked about how she never smiled but observed everything. Her third year was how she became a big sister. And this year we talked about her strong personality and slight interest in princesses.

It was beautiful to watch because we got to reminisce and her classmates got to learn about her. She was basking in the attention.

After Lily was honored Cathy then asked for all the other four year olds to stand and then the three year olds, the five year olds, and finally the one six year old in the class.

Lily handed out her cupcakes to the class. She specifically wanted pink frosting but I didn't want the added sugar so I used food coloring on the reduced sugar vanilla frosting.

The birthday child then gets to pick two friends to eat lunch with. Before she said the names we knew she would pick Ella and Grace. Ella and Lily are especially close and they go over to each other's house a few times a month. I'm sorry the picture is so dark but it was the only one I got.


Girl talk at the lunch table.

I know I'm a little behind with the posting - I seem to post things about a week behind. But maybe you'd never had known if I didn't say anything so let's just pretend I never mentioned it.

2 comments:

Ashley said...

What a cool idea! I love that you said she has a "slight" interest in princesses!;)

Rachel said...

That is such a neat idea! Glad she enjoyed her day!