I just love Pinterest.

Seriously.

It’s hard to imagine how we SURVIVED without it.  It has been such a source of inspiration for me with so many great ideas for my classroom… not to mention my kitchen, my wardrobe, and my house!

I ran across a pin showing birthday certificates all filed away in plastic sheets in a binder… for the whole year!

No last minute furious scrambling of a birthday greeting to place on the special birthday boy or girl’s desk before the day starts!!! That sounded wonderful to me!

There are lots of variations of how to do this, but I ended up just picking up some birthday goodies from the 88 cent bins at Walmart and called it a day. That sounded much better to me than printing and cutting out things. {and, fyi… my walmart had their 88 cent goodies marked down to FORTY cents last weekend!}

I found birthday certificates and birthday ribbon stickers… around 12 for 88 cents a piece! Hard to beat that especially when those things are usually found only in the teacher store at ridiculously inflated prices!

My mom even had a bunch of birthday pencils that she donated to my project.  :)

I had to do some brainstorming to figure out how I was going to incorporate a birthday homework pass in those two things so I didn’t have to print something else.  I thought about writing a note on the back corner of the certificate that they could tear off and keep in their pocket, but Chris pointed out they might want to take it home and show their parents or put it on their fridge or whatever.

Then I thought about using the ribbon as the pass, but I wanted them to be able to wear it around school for the day, and I know the chances it would be lost would be purty good.

So I decided to write the HW Pass birthday greeting on the back of the ribbon sticker. That way when they peel off the back, the hw pass can be slipped in their name tag pocket, and they can merrily wear their ribbon.  :)

I trimmed around the birthday ribbon sticker and taped it to the birthday pencil for a fun dramatic look!

I could put all these in a jar or pot and use it as classroom decor, but I decided to file them all together in my desk by months.

I also have the birthdays displayed on the wall, so I can occasionally glance to see if there are any birthdays coming up I need to be prepared for!

I absolutely LOVE knowing that all my little cherubs have their Birthday gift from me all ready to go, and no one will be devastated when their stressed out teacher forgot to have their greeting ready.  :)

Hooray for THAT, I say!

What’s your favorite way to keep up with student birthdays and NOT break the bank?

Linking up to.. Weekend Bloggy Link up, Five Days Five Ways, and 4th Grade Frolics!