Bridge Ceremony

Sniff sniff and tears... Today Akilah participated in the bridge ceremony on her very last day at the Little Round Schoolhouse, a mixed ages Waldorf inspired program that she has been attending since she was 2 and 1/2 years old.

There was a lot of preparation for the ceremony, both in and out of school. The night before she, out of the blue, pulled out shells, stones, silks, people, sticks, a beeswax golden fish and reenacted her own version:

Akilah's puppet show.

Seriously awesome. I love this child so much!!!

I would love to Akilah to be able to remember this day and my photos do not really do it justice so I have copied and pasted the information we received ahead of time about how the celebration would go.

Becca's words from a message to the families: "First, we will be having a community picnic (not potluck) at 11:30 on Thursday.  You may bring a lunch for your child when you come or send one in the morning with your child.  Whatever works best for your family.  After lunch, we will clean up and get set up for our puppet show.  We will have the children sit on a blanket close to the puppet show table.  You may sit anywhere you would like :-) Siblings are welcome to join us on the blanket.  Please make sure your child does not grab or remove any objects from the puppet show. :-)

When the puppet show is over, we will start to sing 'Make new friends but keep the old.'  We will then ask that the parents stand in a small semi-circle at the opposite side of the bridge as the children.  Scott and I will pass out flowers to the children.  Once they all have their flowers, we will hug the children 'goodbye' who are crossing over the bridge.  They will then walk over the bridge to you, the parents.  Embrace them with joy and excitement :-)  We invite parents of returning children to come and stand with us by the schoolhouse.  Once everyone has crossed over the bridge, we will form a large circle and sing 'Make new friends' one last time.  We will then close our circle together and share in celebration and community."

Eating a picnic lunch with all her friends before the ceremony:

Getting ready for the puppet show:

Miss Becca telling the story:

 Even Pecky wanted to join in the fun:

It was all so lovely, and quite emotional for all of us! I do not have any good photos of the actual crossing over the bridge, and the rest not on here all have faces of other children, so here are some afterward of Akilah practicing her tree pose on the bridge.

Playing afterward:

We are immensely grateful that Akilah has had just beautiful experiences over these past three years and are very sad to see it come to an end.

Kaia you just wait, your turn for the Little Round Schoolhouse will be here before we know it!

Coincidentally, this evening was a meet and greet for rising Kindergarteners at Evergreen. A meal was shared by all, baked in their cobb oven, and all the children got to meet the teachers and one another. But first, summer time, here we come!