Need Your Help re. Student B-day

[Daxx]

I teach Kdg. and school starts on 9/6. I have an incoming student who has a bday on 9/4. The first 3 days of school (Weds., Thurs., Fri.) I will provide snack as the student snack calendar starts on the following Monday.

So ... what should I do about the bday? Please vote - poll incoming!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Won't the parents send a snack in if they want to do that? At least that's how it works at our elem school. The teacher is not responsible for snack, even though the teacher does give snack guidelines (no homemade snacks, no peanuts, etc).

If I had to choose one based on your poll choices, I would choose to celebrate at the beginning of this school year.

 

[Daxx]

Won't the parents send a snack in if they want to do that? At least that's how it works at our elem school. The teacher is not responsible for snack, even though the teacher does give snack guidelines (no homemade snacks, no peanuts, etc).

I make myself responsible for snack the first 3 days of school. The parents get their snack calendar on the first day of school so those who are on the calendar for the first full week have time over the weekend to get their snack purchased.

My predicament is whether to put this girl's bday late on the Sept. calendar or wait until the end of the year to celebrate.

I also want to add that she and the parents speak NO English!!! I don't even know if they'll even get the whole bday thing!

 

[momrek06]

Daxx: I am a little confused...I am going with the thought that the child's bday falls when school was (technically) not in session. Are there any other bday's from the summer that need to be recognized if you are going to recognize this child?

It is just that someone might get all upset if you celebrate a bday of a child whose bday was not really when the school was OPEN. I understand that you will undoubtedly celebrate bdays of those that fall on the weekends throughout the school year...but the key words are "school YEAR"....???

Both my DS' bdays are June 14th (we were always out of school by then) and December 30th (we were always on Xmas break). For my oldest child, I would ask the teacher if I could bring in cupcakes on the last day to celebrate DS' bday along with the close of school. DS#2, I did nothing at school but did celebrate big during the Xmas break with a huge party and invited all his classmates to the party.

My only thought is why not call the parent and see if they would like to be the one providing the snack for the Monday AFTER the first week. I do not think it is the teacher's responsibility for a child's bday snack!


Edited: Daxx, I meant to vote for Monday AFTER but by mistake hit the "celebrate at the end of year"...ugh...

 

[Beth76]

My school celebrates summer birthdays as half birthdays.

 

[Barb D]

Will you have met the girl before school starts? That way you could get an idea of her personality (shy/doesn't want attention vs outgoing/loves attention, etc.)

 

[paigevz]

That's cute Beth. I always do the summer birthdays on the last few weeks. We just count back from the last day the number of summer birthdays we have, and celebrate one daily from that point.

I don't usually do anything about those turning before school.........just put them on with the summer bdays.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Hmmm, the no English/cultural difference could be tough. Who knows what they would expect to do. Maybe I would just celebrate it as a summer birthday unless the parents contact you and want to do something different. You can put them down as snack for that day, but not specify a birthday snack.

 

[CEDmom]

Unless you're going to bring in a special snack for every child's birthday I wouldn't do anything special.

For what it's worth my DD's 7th birthday is actually today. School starts next week and I don't intend to send anything in nor do I expect her teacher to recognize it since it's not during the school year.

 

[jpmandan]

I also have a child in my kindergarten class that speaks NO English. We have been in school since August 4, and she hasn't picked up much yet. My student's folder doesn't get looked at (this includes my calendar with snack days) unless I call an aunt that can go to their house and help. It would be a blessing to her to wait until the end-of-the-year birthday celebrations so that she could pick up some language skills and understand what is going on.

 

[Daxx]

Daxx: I am a little confused...I am going with the thought that the child's bday falls when school was (technically) not in session.

You are correct ... the bday falls before school is in session.

Are there any other bday's from the summer that need to be recognized if you are going to recognize this child?

Yes ... this school year, I have a lot of summer bdays!

My only thought is why not call the parent and see if they would like to be the one providing the snack for the Monday AFTER the first week. I do not think it is the teacher's responsibility for a child's bday snack!

I can't call the parents b/c they don't speak English. Neither does the child. I wouldn't be providing a bday snack. Regardless of when I do the bday, I am not providing snack for the child.

Edited: Daxx, I meant to vote for Monday AFTER but by mistake hit the "celebrate at the end of year"...ugh...

Will take that into consideration!

 

[Daxx]

Will you have met the girl before school starts? That way you could get an idea of her personality (shy/doesn't want attention vs outgoing/loves attention, etc.)

Unfortunately, no ... I will not meet her until the first day of school.

 

[golfgal]

Our kids' school did 1/2 birthdays for the summer birthday kids too. That might be a good option so this child can get into the swing of things and see a few other kids celebrate a birthday at school.

 

[donnajon]

My first thought would be the first of the year but since she doesn't speak English, would she even know what you were doing, cultural issues aside?

 

[barkley]

i've never heard of waiting till the end of the year to celebrate summer birthdays-the schools my kids have gone to always celebrate those at the begining of the school year. but beyond recognizing the birthday with singing 'happy birthday to you', writing their name on the wipe board, and (if the parent chooses) letting them bring a treat for the class they don't do anything else (don't want the parents to feel they have to provide a special treat if they don't want to or cant). there were (i think) about a half a dozen kids with summer birthdays this year and the teacher did the summer recognition within the first few days (she brought cupcakes that day as a 'welcome back to school treat' but the kids referred to them as 'summer birthday treats'). the grades that do snack (stops at our school at 3rd grade), the teacher does make an attempt to slot the parents into the snack calendar for one of their weeks so it corresponds with their child's bday-so they can opt to pick a special snack or not.

since you teach such young ones (whose feelings tend to get hurt much easier) i would treat this child's bday just as all the other summer bday's and celebrate at your normal designated time (i'm thinking it might upset some of the late august celebrants if she gets to celebrate hers now but they have to wait 9 months).

as far as i know most cultures celebrate or at least reccognize birthdays. the only realy notable exceptions are a realy small portion of the dutch but that's based on a fundementalist christian church some belong to that does'nt celebrate any holidays (much like jehovah's witnessess).

btw-if you happen to know or suspect you have any jehovah's witness kids or others who have a religious belief against celebrating bdays you might want to keep some type of back up snack on hand for those times when the snack parent brings 'birthday celebration' foods as the daily snack (i had a co-worker whose family was j.w. and the children were instructed to politely decline any snacks offered to them that were tied into a birthday celebration because it was considered a violation of their religious practices, so unless her dd had a back up snack in her backpack on those occasions she had to go without that day-the mom realy appreciated it when the dd was in a classroom with a class calendar that said which days during a given month were student bdays so she could plan on packing something 'just in case').

 

[Evil Queen]

The beginning.

 

[mickeyboat]

School started on Aug 29, Emily's birthday is Aug 27. I usually bring in special treats on the first day of school, except this year she didn't want me to.

Hannah's birthday is Sept 2, and I will be bringing in special treats tomorrow.

If it were me, I would celebrate it at the beginning. Just say you are celebrating September birthdays, and save the summer birthdays in June, July and August for the summer celebration.

Denae

 

[PlaneJoy1]

We usually have a big b-day party for all the summer b-day's at the end of school. If your not going to celebrate ALL the summer b-day's, I don't think this one girl should be singled out even if it is just a couple of days before school.

Just my opinion.