Happy Birthday!

Make a list of your students' birthdays. (This Jesus Loves the Children Incentive Chart can keep track of attendance or memory verses plus birth dates. Comes in a pack of two.) As new children join your class, keep track of their birthdays, too. If you have a large group of students, consider having a monthly birthday celebration. Include everyone with birthdays during that month as your guests of honor. If you have a dozen students or less, try celebrating each child near the date of his or her birthday.

Decorate one wall or bulletin board with this Birthday Celebration mini bulletin board set. It includes twelve cake slices labeled with each month of the year, 32 candles (one for each of your students), plus decorative balloons and noisemakers to put on the bulletin board. You may also want to give the birthday child a large Birthday star sticker that says, "It's my birthday!" These large 3 x 3-inch stickers come 36 to a package.

Let the birthday child stand in front of the class next to you. Consider providing a special "Birthday Hat" for the child to wear during class. Celebrate the child's special day by leading the class in the Happy Birthday song. After singing it once through, add a second verse:
    God's blessings to you,
God's blessings to you,
     God's blessings to [Jamie],
God's blessings to you.

You might want to provide an inexpensive present for the birthday child, such as a sheet of stickers. Choose napkins and a snack with a birthday theme (cake, cupcakes, muffins, circus animal cookies, etc.). Conclude with a prayer of thanks for the birthday child.

If the child's birthday occurs during a time when your class is on vacation, send a "Happy Birthday" postcard. Visit ChristianEdWarehouse.com for birthday postcards. (Or send a card to each child the week before his or her birthday. Children love getting mail and they don't get it very often. How special to get a card from their teacher.)

Action Rhyme for Preschoolers

Here's an action rhyme you can sing with your preschoolers as you do the motions together. We've added some verses to make them appropriate for Sunday school and to emphasize that we are created by God.


Open, Shut Them
Open, shut them, open shut them 
(spread fingers wide and then close them into fists),
Give a little clap (clap hands).

Open, shut them, open shut them 

(spread fingers wide and then close them into fists),

Hold them in your lap.

Walk them, walk them
(walk fingers from toes to chin)

Walk them, walk them, right up your chin.

Open wide your great big mouth

But don't let them go in (place hands over mouth).

Walk them, walk them
(walk fingers from chin to toes), 

Walk them, walk them way down to your toes.

Then you give a great bit jump and land upon your nose

(jump fingers to land on nose).

Walk them, walk them
(walk fingers from chin to knees),

Walk them, walk them stopping at your knees.

God made fingers, God made toes,

And God made all of me!