Unique Birthday Celebration in School

My birthday parties did not just happen on the weekend. It continued into the first week back to school after spring break and party number 4 happened in school on April 5th. 

My school calls it "Celebration of Life", a fun and unique way to mark a birthday by sharing a child's life and accomplishments to date.

I was asked to choose pictures from each year of my life and take Amma-Baba's help to write a short life story about me. Then the teacher reads out my story to the class while I show my pictures from each year and later all the kids sing for me and I distribute my favorite snacks to everyone. I am glad the school does not allow cakes as I also don't like to eat them. Instead I got to share my favorites cranberries and cheese crackers with everyone.

I contributed to my life story and made Amma-Baba narrate to me multiple times to make sure none of my funny/silly things when I was a baby were written to make my friends laugh at me. I was given choices for pictures from each year and this is what I chose from new born to age 5.

My teacher provided us with a template for the life story and here's what we said in my life story....

 

Child: Aadvik Mitra                                                  Birthday Date: April 1, 2011

Age: 5 years                                                            Celebration Date: April 5, 2016

Celebration of Life

The story of Aadvik who was born on April 1, 2011 in Hackensack, New Jersey, United States of America, North America.

As a newborn Aadvik liked to sleep a lot and drank milk every three hours. He first started eating solid food at four months – which is also when he started going to daycare.

By six months, he could sit up by himself, and by eight months he could crawl. Aadvik also started to travel to different countries and had visited his grandparents in India, and went on vacation to Mexico by then.

At ten months, he decided to walk by himself and loved to dance to one of his favorite African music.

When Aadvik was one year old, he had a big party with lots of people and his favorite Doctor Seuss book shaped cake. He even had a special cake that he could sit on the table and smash.

By the time he turned two years old, he had moved to Arlington, Virginia with his parents and loved to watch Thomas the Train on TV. He also loved to watch the trains, and cars, and planes that he could see from the window of his room in the apartment.

At age three, Aadvik still liked Thomas the Train and all other types of transportation. He went on vacation to Germany and his highlight of the trip was that he got to travel by different trains, planes, cars, and a suspension railway. He also moved from using a tricycle to using a scooty.

As soon as he turned four, he moved from Virginia to Maryland and he joined Lone Oak Montessori. He learnt to ride a big bike – with training wheels – and got interested in animals and nature. He went to the zoo multiple times in the year and loved the animals in the mammal house and also visited Baltimore aquarium where he loved watching the dolphins.

And now Aadvik is five years old!

He has started to read by himself and can figure out words by making the sounds. He loves to read a book everyday before sleeping and is participating in a library initiative through which he has read almost 1,000 books between when he turned three and now. He also likes to sing and go to karate class where he was awarded his orange belt recently.

His favorite color is green – because it is Boulder the Rescuebot’s color.

His favorite food is waffles with butter and Mac and Cheese balls that he takes to school for lunch.

His favorite current activity is playing with his Rescuebots along with his friends.