Birthday circle

"Birthday circle" is a very big deal in Xander's school.  The kids come in and everyone sits on the floor but the birthday kid, who sits in a chair.  In the middle of the circle is a calendar of sorts, with strips labeled with the months emanating like the sun with a candle in the middle, and an empty vase residing at the end of the birthday month strip. Then someone volunteers to hold up the birthday kid's poster, showing one picture per year of his/her life, and the kid stands on the strip next to their birthday month with the vase and answers questions. What was Xander doing when he was born?  Was he drinking milk?  Could he walk?  Etc.  

Then after the questions are exhausted, the teacher says, "And then the earth went around the sun one time and  Xander was ONE year old!"  And the kid circles the sun/calendar, takes a flower from another kid volunteer, and puts it in the vase.  The pattern continues until, in our case, Xander has circled the calendar five times, answered questions five times, and has put five flowers in the vase. Then he blows out the candle and everyone sings "happy birthday."  It was a 15 minute process, and was kind of awesome.

Then the birthday kid gets to choose two friends to sit with at a table while s/he has snack, which is of course provided by the parents of said kid.  Behold our contribution:  Spiderman cupcakes!

Jonathan dyed the cake mix red and the frosting blue, and I made the webs out of decorating gel.  Xander Spiderboy was very happy with them. :)

I also love that the school sent us a thank-you note for having born Xander, saying how grateful they were that he was with us.

(For another description of a Montessori birthday celebration, complete with pictures, click here.)