October 07th, 2021

Happy Birthday Ellie! 

Happy Birthday Ellie! Today was the first of many school birthday celebrations. Here at St. John’s we have a long standing tradition of celebrating birthdays with friends and family. While families join us on the day to share stories and the birthday ceremony, children in the birthday committee work for a week preparing a handmade gift. The intention behind the gift is to create a sense of community and inspire empathy and friendship between the children. The gift process begins with asking the birthday child some questions to get to know them better. Then, based on the birthday child’s answers, the birthday committee begins creating the special gift. 

In preparation for Ellie’s birthday we asked her about her favorite colors, her favorite animal and her favorite food. Her answers were in order: blue and green, elephants and spaghetti. Using blue and green materials curated by Karen and Elena, the birthday committee met over the course of three days to paint, design and arrange the final gift for Ellie. 

Day 1- Painting the Gift

Ford and Emma were the first members of the birthday committee to start working on Ellie’s gift. Each member of the birthday committee was intentionally chosen because of their interest in Ellie as a friend and their excitement about the birthday calendar.

Karen and Elena  had prepared a watercolor and wood provocation for Ellie’s birthday, using blue and green watercolor. Both Ford and Emma took on the task with reverence as they shared the green and blue watercolor, carefully covering each piece of the wood with paint. As they worked they shared the following thoughts:

Emma: I’m wanna put blue
Ford: There’s blue on the bottom
Ford: Now let’s paint this side, I’m covering it!
Emma: oooooh, it’s painting! I want the blue one… 1...2….4… (counting the strokes of the brush)
Ford: Her (Ellie) gonna love it! We have to hide then it surprise!

After painting and cleaning, Ford noticed that some of the pieces on the tray were still unpainted. “Can I paint that?” he asked and he diligently filled in the empty space. 

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Day 2 - Decorating the Painted Wood

Once the wood had dried, it was time to decorate it with blue and green materials. While half of Brown room spent time in the atelier with clay; Rawls, Ford and Fay began decorating the wood in the classroom studio. Each child added their own idea to the project. Ford chose to decorate by stacking materials on top of each other, whereas Fay spent time covering up tiles and buttons with cellophane paper. She called these “presents” and thought Ellie might enjoy unwrapping them on the day of her celebration. 
Fay (as she wraps up a tile in tissue and cellophane paper) : Look! Now it’s missing. It’s a present!
Rawls: It’s Ellie’s birthday!
Fay: Another present!
Ford: oh! It’s a button 

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Day 3 - Arranging the Wood 

By the third day of the Birthday committee, we had 4 beautifully painted and decorated pieces of wood. Ramsey and Fay took the time to arrange the three smaller pieces on the larger piece of wood and filled in empty spaces with more decorations. Ramsey took particular care to pick out buttons he thought Ellie would like, and arrange them in ascending size order on the side of the gift. 

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The Gift