Inside: How to celebrate toddler and preschool classroom birthdays while keeping it simple and fun. Free printable banner included!
Just mention the word birthday and you get a super excited toddler or preschooler. Seriously, there is nothing like turning 3 or 4 in their lives.
If we just mention the word, our 3 year olds get so excited, all telling me at once how old they will be, or what they want, or what kind of party.
That means celebrating birthdays in the classroom is important. Super important!
The key is keeping it simple and yet special. And that’s exactly how our toddler and preschool birthday celebrations are!
Edited to add: Since this post was written, we’ve changed from displaying birthday crowns to hanging a banner. Scroll down towards the bottom of this post to find a free printable so you can make your own banner!
How to Celebrate Toddler and Preschool Classroom Birthdays
We celebrate every child’s birthday during the school year. Our summer birthdays are celebrated in May. We don’t want anyone feeling left out! (And, as a mother with 2 children who have summer birthdays, I am sensitive to this.)
The Birthday Crowns
We have a plain white paper birthday crown ready for each child when school starts. These will be taken down to be painted and then put back on the wall with a label that reads the child’s name and birthdate. They are hung in chronological order starting with September and ending with August. (Our school starts in September.)
The first or second week of school, we have our toddlers and preschoolers paint their crowns.
I love how this personalizes each crown!
Once the crowns are dry, they are assembled and hung back on the wall.
And then we wait.
We wait for those magical birthday celebrations! And we keep letting each other know how old we will be.
The Felt Birthday Cake
We’ve had this felt cake set since I first started teaching, over 16 years ago. It’s helped celebrate hundreds of birthdays at our preschool! It’s looking a bit tired and might need to retire soon, but it makes me smile every time I see it.
The birthday child sits in a special birthday chair and we place the cake on a felt board. We then count how many candles will go on the cake, and they are placed on the board.
The Birthday Song
We sing 2 songs. During the first song, the birthday child holds the felt board face out, so we can get some good birthday photos.
Here’s our first song (tune: On Top of Old Smokey):
Today is a birthday, I wonder for whom?
I know it’s for someone who’s right in this room
So look all around you for somebody who, is
smiling, and happy
My Goodness, it’s YOU!
I honestly don’t recall where I found it, so I will give credit to this website, where I am finding it now.
We then flip the felt board around to face the birthday child, and we sing the traditional birthday song.
And the whole class cheers the birthday person!
Birthday Treats
Prior to the event we let our families know which day we will be celebrating their children’s birthdays and they have the option of sending a simple birthday treat. We follow our licensing rules, making sure the treat is store-bought and in the original container.
If we have children with food allergies, we make sure that the treat’s ingredients are safe for them.
Free printable banner for you to use in your classroom!
New! Due to several requests, I have added printables for children turning 1, 2, and 5!
Click on the photo below for 1 and 2 candles:
Click on the photo below for 3, 4, and 5 candles:
More posts for early childhood teachers:
How to Help Preschoolers with Communication Skills
Creating a Preschool Classroom Schedule
How to Deal with Separation Anxiety in the Classroom
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Love the Birthday Crowns!! Kerri
Wonderful idea! If I had enough wall space to put all their birthday crowns up at one time I would… so I will modify. THanks!
-Vanessa
So good! crowns is great!
Love this post. I am pinning to my Pinterest boards Classroom Organisation and Waldorf. Although I am not in the classroom anymore I can still see how I can adapt this for use in my home. I think they’ll love it!
The crown idea is awesome. It’s obvious you love birthdays! Keep up the great work!
Michael @ Romp n’ Roll
Awesome ideas! I love the crowns on the wall!
Diana
Diana Rambles
Bento Blog Network
Thank you for sharing! I love the birthday crown bulletin board idea and special birthday chair! I will be doing this next year with my preschoolers 🙂
Erica @ mylittlesonbeam.blogspot.com
I love your idea of making the birthday’s personal. It’s always a plus to have as much of the kid’s art work up as possible. I have an idea to keep the board looking decorated after each birthday. I would take a picture of the child in their crown and hang it in the empty space or have each child say something nice about the birthday child, print out the comments and hang them up in the space. Thanks for the great idea!
Hi Lisa, I’m glad you brought this up, because that’s what I used to do! A great reminder to start it up again.