Birthday Celebration

The first week back from the holidays had been extremely busy with several children turning five and going to school. We have a tradition of hosting a birthday mat-time to farewell the children. The families of the birthday children are invited to the mat-time too. The routine includes looking at their learning story portfolios and art folders; reading out a birthday card signed by everyone, children and teachers; blowing candles on a play dough birthday cake; and playing a party game.

The idea of reading the portfolio is to involve the child to revisit and reflect his learning journey, which hopefully helps the child to get ready for the next step of his growth and development. I love to draw the children's attention to their first photo, pointing out that they have grown up physically. As I'm a petite adult, whenever I comment that they have grown taller with long legs and long arms, the child tends to agree and proudly suggests that he is nearly as tall as I am.

When browsing their learning stories portfolio, I will let children choose a few stories of special importance to them to read out loud. It's a moment for the child to assess his learning and achievement. I feel good when the child picks out projects in which he has invested lots of time and energy.  But when the child says his favorite moment is the christmas party or the trip to the museum, I will start questioning whether the teachers have done enough to support the child's learning. I know I'm a bit silly. Who doesn't love Christmas with Santa giving out presents?

For the birthday cake and card, the teacher usually involve the birthday child in making and decorating them. It is a nice moment of one on one, and the child will also learn the little poem to be glued on the birthday card. Later during the mat-time, some confident children choose to read out (from memory sometimes) the poem, or everyone will help reading out the poem together. The birthday child and his family really enjoy the opportunity to show off their 'literacy skills'.

Since the kindy community has become diverse in ethnicity recently. We worry that families of other cultures may feel uncomfortable with the way we celebrate, so we wrote up a note to parents with children turning five, explaining what we are doing at kindy and that it is up to them whether they want to involve their child in the celebration. So far, no parents opt out. It proves that we are worrying too much. It worths the trouble though, as we respect parents as part of our programme.