Birthdays are always special. To celebrate in our class, the birthday person comes to the front of the class and calls on classmates to name an action or noun. If the student is 8, she calls on 8 different students for their suggestions. Students might say march, run in place, or act like a dragon, motorcyle, or princess ponny. Then all students stand up and do an action that represents that word. They keep moving until I count to the birthday number and ring a bell signaling students to freeze. One rule is that they cannot touch anyone else.
Students often make the animal noises that represent the nouns.
They enjoy creative movements and consider this activity a nice celebration.
However, they all agree that my birthday will not be celebrated this way. It would take us all day.
After all the creative movement, we sing Happy Birthday and get on with learning. Before school is out for the summer we make sure all who have a summer birthday get to celebrate.
