The Gender Reveal Party - Kindergarten Style!

I really, really, really wanted to have a gender reveal party for New Baby Jones.  I just love this idea, but my friend Erin didn't have her gender reveal party for Ella in time for me to steal it during my last pregnancy.  It would've been kind of awkward to have a gender reveal party for Katie Anne after Erin and Jason's ... since Katie Anne was about 4 months old when they revealed that Ella was a girl.  :)  

So, I had totally planned on having a party for friends and family to reveal the gender of this new baby.  I'd been tossing ideas like cute cupcakes and cheeky invitation wording around in my mind for weeks before I realized the bad news... we'd find out the new baby's gender on April 5.  Why is this a problem?  Well, it is the day after Easter... the day after KA's third birthday... and smack between already-planned family gatherings for the Easter holiday and KA's third birthday party.  So, there was no time for a party near the ultrasound date.  We thought about finding out but not telling anyone, and then waiting a few weeks to have the party, but... would we be able to find out the gender and not reveal it?  Short answer - No.  

Plus, this was the first year that Katie Anne really "got it" that she was having a birthday, and boy did she get it!  She was pumped out of her mind for weeks about her Tinkerbell party, and we didn't want to override any of her fun.  We thought about giving her some kind of gift at her party to reveal the news, but we were both worried about her feeling like the baby news had trumped her party.  (Hey, we're both oldest children here... so we've got KA's back on the whole first-born thing - haha!)  No point in inspiring sibling rivalry before the baby's even born.

So, we just told all our friends and family as soon as we knew, and it was just fine. Everyone was totally excited, and we were happy that we didn't have to keep the secret any longer than that.

However, was I willing to give up ALL my party ideas?  Was I willing to blow off the super-cute secret stuffed-with-pink-or-blue-filling cupcakes I'd dreamed about?  Heck, no!  This might be my last pregnancy, and there was no way that great cupcake idea was going to waste!  Plus, I have a whole captive audience full of people who get PUMPED about a party for any reason at all, and who would be more than happy to celebrate with me, even a week and a half after I found out the baby's gender.  Plus, these people don't have access to Facebook yet, so they missed the original announcement and were still in the dark about the baby's gender!

Who are they, you ask?

My kindergartners, of course!

I planned a whole (Georgia Performance Standards based, of course - MKD1 for anyone who is curious) afternoon of fun for my class.  First, I sent a letter to the parents, asking that the kids wear either blue or pink shirts based on their prediction about the baby's gender.  

Me posing with Team Girl:

Me posing with Team Boy:

Then, we asked our "informational question": Will Mrs. Jones's baby be a boy or a girl?  We gathered our data - the kids' predictions - and graphed our results as a bar graph.  It was a super-fun math lesson, and it lead really nicely into a week's worth of graphing activities.

Then, it was time for the real fun... cupcake time!  All the kids were so anxious to bite their cupcakes, and they had a hard time waiting until everyone had their cupcake ready.  Here are the cuties while they're waiting for all the cupcakes to be passed out...

Finally, it was time for the big reveal - the big bite!  As soon as Team Boy saw the bright blue icing inside the cupcakes, they started to cheer!

Of course, the girls were a little upset about the Team Girl loss...

But the boys were so excited to hear about SJ4 joining the ranks of Team Boy!

After we finished our snacks, we hung our data and graph in the hallway to share the news with the rest of the hallway.

It was such fun, and I'm glad that I got to have a little gender reveal party for Saunders IV.  Now, Erin and Jason are pregnant again, too ... and their gender reveal party for new baby Jolly is tonight!  I've got to go get ready - pictures from that party to come later!