The Mailbox turns 40 this year! Yes sirree, for 40 fabulous years, The Mailbox has delivered creative and educationally sound ideas to teachers around the world from teachers around the world. Now that’s what I call making a difference!
Our official celebration kicks off this Wednesday, July 17, and lasts for FORTY days! I promise you, it’s going to be loads of fun! Think sweepstakes, online offers, e-book specials, Yearbook deals, new books, gifts…🙂
All this buzz has me curious about your classroom celebrations. What are your best ideas and management tips for planning and accomplishing low-stress celebrations?
Ready to celebrate!
Diane
My biggest tip is to have enough adult help ask parents to pitch in.
Every party day the work the children do in my class is making a placemat for themselves. They snip to fringe each edge. Put their name in the middle and then they decorate it with die cuts, stickers and bingo daubbers.
Their next work is after washing their hands is to help prepare the food. They may slice up fruit for fruit salad, frost and decorate a sugar cookie, make their own pizza or spread butter on bread for a grilled cheese sandwich. No knives they use craft sticks for safety.
Happy Birthday Mailbox. I am very thankful that my whole teaching career I have always had you to help me make my classroom a great place and for making my job easier.
I agree 100% with Darlene Mom’s, Dad’s or Grandparents make everything go smoother during class celebrations.
Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iPad
and tested to see if it can survive a forty foot
drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation.
My apple ipad is now broken and she has 83 views. I
know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
When all the kids in my class learned their birthdate, we had a birthday party with decorations, cupcakes, party favors and games. One of the kids told me it was the best birthday ever!
Happy Birthday & Thank You, Mailbox, for being such an incredible source of inspiration and ideas!!! 🙂
When it comes to classroom celebrations, my district requires all party foods to be store bought. No homemade cupcakes or other edible treats are allowed. Parents usually bring cupcakes that they bought at the local grocery store, and they make treat bags for all of the students to take home. The treat bags are put together with party favors – notebooks, pencils, tops, kazoos, etc.
Happy Birthday, Mailbox!
My kindergartners draw and color a picture for the birthday kid. I add my own page with a message for the child. Then I put all the pages inside colorful paper for the front and back covers and use rainbow-colored yarn to tie it together. The papers that I give the children are from a book of master forms for teachers to use; the birthday pages have a border of presents.