The Birthday Circle

In the Montessori tradition, the birthday child carries a globe around the circle for each year of their life representing the path of earth around sun. There is a candle burning in the middle, representing the sun. As the child carries the globe a special song is sung by the teachers, students and family: "The earth goes 'round the sun, the sun, the earth goes 'round the sun. It takes 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days." At the end of each trip around the sun, the child shares a picture of themselves for each year of their life to show how much they've grown and changed and you discuss the child's achievements for that year. The ceremony ends with the class singing Happy Birthday and the child blows out the candle.

William was lucky enough to be able to participate in this wonderful tradition at his Montessori preschool...it was a strange day for him, although, strange may not be the right word b/c his behavior was actually normal. As soon as we walked in to the classroom with his goodies, he smiled, said, "Mommy!" and promptly burst in to tears and ran to me. Then refused to leave my side. He wouldn't walk around the circle with the globe but instead chose his friend Cody to "be him" and walk the circle. Cody is the sweetest boy around, Will talks about him all the time, he's one of his best friends. And I can always see why. On this day, Cody would bend down and lean in real close to Will and say, "It's okay, Will. You can do it. Here hold my hand. We can do it together." Eventually Will did walk the circle with the globe and the pictures (with a tight grip on me). This is pretty typical for Will, he gets extremely anxious and "shuts down" sort of when something exciting or different is about to happen. He was perfectly fine setting up the circle and talking about it with his teacher and friends, but as soon as Mommy and Daddy walked in, it was out of his routine and he was freaked. It all turned out though, we showed our pictures and talked about his acheivements (swimming, walking, soccer, writing, knowing numbers/letters). They sang Happy Birthday and Will picked 3 friends to get high fives from. And then we shared our snack with his class and Will was VERY excited about it, a HUGE chocolate chip cookie that said Happy Birthday William on it.Will's birthday circle with his teacher, me and classmates.

Will's friend Cody walking the circle holding Will's picture.Will deciding to take charge of his own birthday circle.Every day before the kids can eat lunch, they sit with their hands folded and wait for everyone to have their food. Here's Will doing it before they even ask them to. I was so proud. I think he looks unbelievably sweet in this picture.Will's gigantic cookie.

I love this picture of Will, he's genuinely happy and smiling, not a forced smile just b/c there's a camera.Lining up so nicely to go outside and run off all that sugar I just brought them! :-)