birthdays at school?

when i was first handed an advisory group with no curriculum to work with one of the things i did was to hand some of the time back over to the kids. they each drew a tuesday of the month from a hat and that was their day to plan however they wanted. we called it first tuesdays and it was very successful. now i have more students than there are months in the school year so i just picked a bunch of random dates and they're running advisory on those dates.

one of them planned a birthday party for two of the others last week. and yes, i did allow them to swat at a pinata in the middle of my classroom as you can see in the slideshow and no, i have never see them so happy.

i've never been a big fan of the in-school birthday party (maybe pent up frustration at always having had a summer birthday) but i saw something happen this week when one student helped a group of students make two students feel special for one day. and when one of the birthday girls thanked the hostess with the mostess on our advisory blog...it was one of those moments that makes me think maybe everything will be ok. 

oh, and i was also reminded...they're still kids. so maybe we're doing birthdays now...or at the very least monthly pinata swatting.