Involving Children in Preparing their Birthday Parties

Birthday is a day to commemorate the mother's effort in giving birth to the child. That's my new perspective about the significance of one's birthday after I delivered two children! So perhaps, instead of saying Happy Birthday to the children, we should also say Happy Birthday to their mother!

Since last year, when Pei Pei turned 5 and Hao Hao turned 4, I transferred to them part of the ownership of preparing their birthday parties in school. The other part? Oh, DaDi and I would still be the one who pay for the birthday cake!

Other than choosing their birthday cakes, they were involved in preparing their birthday party favours - from designing the packaging bags to packing the goodies into the bags. 

We bought birthday cake, teacher helped to light up the candles, all children sang birthday song, birthday boy / girl cut cake, everyone ate cake, birthday boy / girl distributed party favours. Oh, does it sound like some SOP (standard operating procedure)?!

For Pei Pei's birthday this year, we decided to do something different. In addition to the SOP (there is no way to skip this procedure), we conducted a craft lesson with Pei Pei's classmates. Well, though I initiated the idea, I sat down with Pei Pei to choose the craft activity together.

No, this is not a one-man woman-show in which I conducted the lesson all by myself. I involved Pei Pei and Hao Hao as the facilitators. Both of them were also in-charge of giving out the materials to the classmates. Before the lesson, I taught Pei Pei how to make the craft at home, so that she could teach her classmates. 

Although I have been doing craft activities with Pei Pei and Hao Hao at home many times, it was my first time conducting a craft lesson for a class of 15 Kindergarden children! My initial plan was to get them to sit in groups, however, the high energy children kept coming to me to show me their work or to ask me for assistance, I was surrounded by them!

I was glad that Pei Pei and Hao Hao were great helpers in distributing the materials, and I was really proud of Pei Pei who guided some of her classmates during the craft session!

This is the simple craft that the whole class made together - Flower Cloth Pin!

Materials:
Cloth pin
Washi tape
Origami paper
Double-sided tape
Scissors

Making of the Flower Origami:

1. Fold the origami paper into half along the diagonal, making a triangle
2. Fold into half to make a smaller triangle, then open it
3. Fold both left and right sides as shown
4. Turn to the back, and fold in the left, right and bottom corners

Making of the Flower Cloth Pin:

Use Washi tape to decorate the cloth pin, then paste the flower origami using double-sided tape. Cut a leaf shape from green origami paper and attach it to the cloth pin using double-sided tape.

Do you involve your children in preparing their birthday party? What are the preparation works that your children are involved in?

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