Is today your birthday? Mine either! But today is everyone in our family's Un-birthday, and that's something to celebrate! Today in S's school, all of the children who have birthdays during the summer got to participate in a special birthday celebration. It truly is so thoughtful and considerate of the principal and his teachers to organize this each year for students and parents who never get to celebrate in school during the academic year (shout out to all you moms who survived being Very Pregnant in the heat of the summer!). It also increases the excitement S feels about his actual birthday, which is still over a month away. Boy is it ever hard to wait! So this afternoon, we are having a Family Un-birthday Celebration. A certain little boy who is *still* 3 is so excited about this, he is singing to himself through nap-time...An Un-Birthday Celebration can be as simple or elaborate as you like! I chose a few activities I thought the boys would love. So crank up the classic tune from Alice in Wonderland and wish everyone you know who isn't celebrating a birthday today a Very Merry Un-Birthday!
Birthday celebrations at our preschool always involve a walk around the sun through the months of each year. S decorated his very own birthday sun this morning and it's featured on our own family living room rug this afternoon for everyone to get a turn being the Un-Birthday Person. Presents are certainly not a must for an Un-Birthday Celebration, but there's something super fun and exciting about unwrapping one--especially when it's not a birthday or holiday. You can scrounge the closet stash, hit up the dollar store or do what I did, and visit the children's book section of your local thrift store. I always find great books there and love to give them a second life.
One of S's favorite things to do in any sensory bin is pretend to make cupcakes. In this one, rainbow rice is meant to resemble sprinkles and an added scent of vanilla extract will leave your mouth watering for the real thing! I tossed in some plastic dishes, birthday candles, birthday confetti, necklaces, blowers, bows and tiny present decorations I had stashed away in a drawer. Both my boys will likely love to play in this one!
If you've never made homemade puffy paint, you really must! You can go buy puffy paint in most craft supply stores, but making your own is super easy and fun. All you need is shaving cream and white glue. If you've ever seen my husband's beard, you know that shaving cream in this house is purely a sensory play product. Squirt about equal amounts of both into a cup (you can't really go wrong here) and add paint or food coloring to get a color you like. Mix with a plastic spoon or craft stick and you're ready to go. Some kids love the feeling of this on their hands for finger painting and others prefer a brush or craft stick to work with it. Either way, it can be helpful to have a wet washcloth nearby. In this activity, I prepped some paper cupcake liners from brown construction paper and printed origami paper. I folded them like a fan and then unfolded and flattened them. Kids can definitely help with this part as well! In the spirit of process art, I always set out the materials all together for this type of craft, but if you do prefer your finished products to resemble a cupcake, you may want to first set out the glue stick and cupcake bottoms and next introduce the puffy paint. Finally you can add in any decorations you like. We are using real sprinkles, birthday confetti and small birthday candles. Once dry, the paint hardens and remains puffy! It's quite fun!Well, we'll be back (with our next Sprout Scouts Playcamp Theme!!!) soon. Until then, a Very Merry Un-birthday to YOU and, as always...
Happy Playing!
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