A week before R's birthday, I called up his Montessori and spoke to the principal there to know how many students are there in his class so that we could be well-prepared. In turn the principal told me that I'd receive a formal invite in R's diary about the celebrations and the details would be mentioned therein.
Sure enough I received the note written by R's teacher inviting us parents to the school on the D-day. Equipped with sweets to be distributed, the husband and I arrived at the school at the time mentioned. The welcome notice board at the school carries the names of the children who celebrate their birthdays in the current month and in addition, children who celebrate their birthdays on the particular day also have their recent snap pinned up. This, I had noticed on the earlier visits too. As expected, the board had R's name and snap:
Since there was another child sharing R's birthday that day, the parents of that child were present too. I had not really spoken to any other parent about what kind of celebrations are done at school, so I was quite clueless on what to expect. Even as we sat wondering, two cute (older to R in age) girls from R's environment (the classes in R's school are called environments and they have a mixed-age group in each environment- a Montessori peculiarity) came out to invite each set of parents. How cute!
We were ushered into R's class, where there was a huge cut out of the Sun was kept on a table.
R was called out and given a globe to hold. He then took the globe and circumambulated the Sun thrice as the rest of the class sang the following song:
The idea is to go around the sun as many times as the age of the child. Each completed round marks the completion of the year- just as the earth takes a year to complete a revolution- with the globe symbolizing the Earth. What an innovative way to teach the kid about Geography! Of course, R may not understand the logic and analogy yet, but the idea is definitely interesting. After the completion of each year/ round, the child was made to pause while the teacher with the help of the parents recounted the important milestone that the child may have crossed at that age. Then the mandatory birthday song was sung, at the end of which the class clapped for the child- the number of claps corresponded to the age of the child with one additional clap for good luck- again an unusual practice that I came across.
R was given a hand-made birthday card and a collection of photo-memories from his previous birthdays (they had requested for his year-wise photographs well in advance) along with an appropriate one-line caption for each of the photo.
I was touched by the effort put in by the teachers to make a child's birthday special. There were no balloons or cake but the time spent to render a warm and personal touch by making such wonderful cards and capture the memories in a beautiful manner was far more precious- something that could be cherished by the kids and their parents for years to come.
Sure enough I received the note written by R's teacher inviting us parents to the school on the D-day. Equipped with sweets to be distributed, the husband and I arrived at the school at the time mentioned. The welcome notice board at the school carries the names of the children who celebrate their birthdays in the current month and in addition, children who celebrate their birthdays on the particular day also have their recent snap pinned up. This, I had noticed on the earlier visits too. As expected, the board had R's name and snap:
Since there was another child sharing R's birthday that day, the parents of that child were present too. I had not really spoken to any other parent about what kind of celebrations are done at school, so I was quite clueless on what to expect. Even as we sat wondering, two cute (older to R in age) girls from R's environment (the classes in R's school are called environments and they have a mixed-age group in each environment- a Montessori peculiarity) came out to invite each set of parents. How cute!
We were ushered into R's class, where there was a huge cut out of the Sun was kept on a table.
R was called out and given a globe to hold. He then took the globe and circumambulated the Sun thrice as the rest of the class sang the following song:
Here we go round the sun
Here we go round the sun
Here we go round the sun
until the year is done..
The idea is to go around the sun as many times as the age of the child. Each completed round marks the completion of the year- just as the earth takes a year to complete a revolution- with the globe symbolizing the Earth. What an innovative way to teach the kid about Geography! Of course, R may not understand the logic and analogy yet, but the idea is definitely interesting. After the completion of each year/ round, the child was made to pause while the teacher with the help of the parents recounted the important milestone that the child may have crossed at that age. Then the mandatory birthday song was sung, at the end of which the class clapped for the child- the number of claps corresponded to the age of the child with one additional clap for good luck- again an unusual practice that I came across.
R was given a hand-made birthday card and a collection of photo-memories from his previous birthdays (they had requested for his year-wise photographs well in advance) along with an appropriate one-line caption for each of the photo.
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| The birthday card |
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| The golden moments card |
I was touched by the effort put in by the teachers to make a child's birthday special. There were no balloons or cake but the time spent to render a warm and personal touch by making such wonderful cards and capture the memories in a beautiful manner was far more precious- something that could be cherished by the kids and their parents for years to come.
