I LOVE birthdays! Celebrating my family and friends on their birthdays is one of my favorite things. I cherish the opportunity to let each person know just how special they are to me. And as a teacher, it was a natural progression for me to take this into the classroom too! Celebrating students, especially on their birthdays, is a great way to build community in your classroom. But, what do you do if you have a student who celebrates their birthday during the summer months when students aren’t in school? We celebrate their half birthdays of course! It’s the perfect way to make sure every single one of your students has the opportunity to feel recognized and loved. I am so excited to share with you three ways to celebrate student birthdays in the classroom this year.

1. Marking Student Birthdays on the Calendar

Keeping track of when your student’s birthdays or half-birthdays are can seem like a time-sucking challenge. Because I don’t like being caught unaware, I make sure to dedicate some time before the first day of school to mark when we will be celebrating each student’s birthday. I make sure to mark these on my master calendar.

When it’s time to make the class calendar, I can just refer back to my master calendar. This helps me to see what students we will be celebrating that month. My students love seeing their names pop up on the class calendar. They always look forward to celebrating their special day with the class.

One of my favorite ways to include student birthdays on our class calendar is with the self-portrait calendar number activity. As part of our first week of school activities, I give each student a two to three-inch square of cardstock to draw a self-portrait and write their name. On the back of each card, I include the date we will be celebrating their birthday.

I store these cards with my monthly calendar numbers. That makes it easy for me to access them when it’s time to put together our new calendar each month. My students absolutely love seeing their self-portraits pop up when we are working on our calendar at the beginning of each month.

2. Birthday Display

A class birthday display is a colorful and creative way to dedicate a space within your classroom to celebrating your special kiddos. Your class birthday display can be as colorful and unique as you want it to be.

If you have a class decor theme, your birthday display can fit in seamlessly. It can also be kept up all year long. Two of my absolute favorite classroom themes which also include a birthday display are the Eric Carle and Sock Monkey themes.

You can make changing out the names on the class birthday display a fun part of your morning work activities at the beginning of each month too.

Fun ways to change out birthday displays could include:

• Calling up students to take down their names from the display to take home from the previous month. Then, giving students with birthdays for the current month their name tags to put up.
• Clap for students as you put up their names on the birthday display for the month.
• Call out names for student birthdays for the new month. When you call out their name the student can share out something they love about themselves. This helps to build confidence and self-esteem as well.

3. Happy Birthday Class Book

This is my absolute, hands-down, favorite way to celebrate birthdays. It’s such a unique and meaningful way for students to celebrate each other throughout the year. Plus, each kiddo gets a special Birthday book keepsake they can take home.

Because building class community is one of my favorite things, the Happy Birthday Class Book is perfect for my classroom. It’s the best way for me to make sure each of my students participates in the celebration of their classmates on their special day.

Getting the whole class involved in the process of making a Happy Birthday Book for their classmates is such a special collaborative activity you and your students will love.

With easy-to-use writing prompts, this book activity encourages each student to really think about what they love and appreciate about the birthday boy or girl.

The Happy Birthday Class Book also encourages students to practice their writing. You can even throw in some sight word requirements to make this a part of a writing center or small group activity.

The Happy Birthday Class Book doesn’t have to be just for students either. One year, my students surprised our principal with a very special collaborative Happy Birthday book. The students had a blast creating it and went above and beyond to surprise our principal on her special day.

Make Student Birthdays Extra Special

Celebrating student birthdays in unique ways will help your students feel valued and important in your classroom. I can tell you from experience when you integrate ways for students to celebrate each other, your year will run more smoothly and your students will thrive. And that’s what it’s all about, helping your students feel safe and loved and united in your classroom. Use one or all of these fun ideas for celebrating student birthdays to start fun traditions in your classroom. And . . . don’t gorget to grab your Happy Birthday Class Book set today!

Save These Celebrating Student Birthday Ideas

Be sure to pin this to your favorite Pinterest teacher board so you can come back anytime for fun and engaging ways to celebrate your student’s birthdays throughout the school year.