It’s my birthday today! Along with Charles Darwin & Abraham Lincoln & lots of other really cool people so “Happy Birthday!” to you too.

Actually Charles Darwin & Abraham Lincoln were both born in the same year, 1809, and did you know that Charles Darwin’s grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood of the pottery company fame?

Anyway, have a look over on the members’ forum for a special birthday present that goes with my “Happy Birthday” picture book.

Birthday Paradox Game

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but with 30 people or more I just love doing the “Birthday Paradox” it never fails to get a shock reaction!

1. Teach the When is your birthday song?
2. Give the kids 2 minutes to line up in order of their birthdays, they are only allowed to speak in English to communicate.
3. If they haven’t done ordinal first, second etc. then I let them get away with the American version of February 12 etc. without the “th”.

Now before you start, you ask them what are the chances that two people in the room have the same birthday. Most people would say “very low”. But once you try this game as long as you have 30 people or more you nearly always have at least two people with the same birthday! Even with just 23 kids there’s a 50% chance. It’s amazing and your abilities as a mind reader are sealed in the kids’ eyes.

This game also works great with several classes racing together to see who can line up the quickest!

Richard Graham

I'm on a mission to make education Genkiโ€”fun, exciting, and full of life! Genki English has now been researched by Harvard University and licensed by the British Council around the world. The results have been magical! Now I'm here to help you teach amazing lessons, with all the materials prepared for you, and to double your teaching income so you can sustainably help many more students in the future!

13 Responses to “Happy Birthday!”

  1. Margit

    Happy Happy birthday to you!(I bet there are going to be tons of comments today, so I’ll keep it short) BEST WISHES!

  2. gumby

    Happy Birthday! It seems like the Thai ministry gave you an early birthday gift. Those who are wondering what it is, look under the superhero thread in the forum! Great job.

  3. Joy k.

    Hi Richard,
    Just check your blog and it’s nice to know that’s your natal day today. There’s a saying that there are 2 types of people borned in the month of February the genius and the crazy one. You must be the GENIUS one. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to you. MAy you have more and more birthdays to come. Got to go..

  4. Flossy

    Happy Birthday Richard. Have a great day!!!

  5. Julian-k

    Happy birthday (hip hip hooray) !

    Iโ€™ve done that game too (without thinking about the same-birthdays thing though, just as a line-up race!) and itโ€™s really true. I had kids who were like, โ€˜wow! I never knew!โ€™

  6. Julian

    Happy Birthday old chap!

    Surely, you can treat yourself to a beer tonight?!

  7. gaz

    Happy birthday to you
    Happy birthday to you
    Happy birthday dear richard
    Happy to you!!

  8. Joelle

    Happy Birthday Richard!

    I downloaded the Power Teaching Manual last week… it’s looong, and I’m only half way through but I have picked up a lot of useful information!

    Their version of the ‘birthday game’ is not actually a game… You hand out a class list to everyone. Ask the children to circle the names of 3 children who they would invite to their birthday.

    Then (keeping the results secret from the children of course!) use this information make an arrow diagram, which reveals relationships between children in the class: who wants to please who, and so on. Then use this information to your advantage for classroom management… Interesting idea! Haven’t tried it yet, but would love to give it a try sometime!

  9. Carol

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I wish you many many more!!!

    Do you have any special plans for the celebration?

  10. Petra

    Happy Birthday Richard!! I love your site… It’s full of great ideas..

  11. richard

    Thank you everyone! ๐Ÿ™‚

  12. Fantastico

    A very happy birthday. “ฤฐyki doฤŸgun.”is what we say in Turkish. Means “Glad you were born”.

  13. Rosebud

    Belated Happy Birthday from me too.

Comments are closed