Our Rainbow Bridge Ceremony

We had the sweetest beginning-of-school ceremony with our Waldorf home school group! We had it at the beautiful Valley View park in La Cresenta. In many Waldorf Schools, they have a rainbow bridge ceremony for the children leaving kindergarten and entering first grade. So we celebrated our children who are entering first grade this year which included my Olivia. Our ceremony was wonderful! My friend Lucy worked VERY HARD planning this--she is amazing. We started by singing "Come follow me."

Come follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow me.
Wither shall I follow, follow, follow, Wither shall I follow, follow thee?
To the green wood, to the green wood, to the green wood, follow me!

While singing this, we formed into a circle. We then said our verse:

Down is the Earth
Up is the Sky
Here are my friends
And here am I

Then we sang:

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.
A circle is round, it has no end.
That's how long, I want to be your friend.

We then had all the children that are second grade or above hold our "Rainbow Bridge" which was made of two rainbow-dyed silk cloths tied together. Claudia helped the first graders form a line and when it was their turn, she handed them a sunflower and sent them to go under the bridge. All of us mothers of the first graders waited at the end of the rainbow bridge and sang:

"Welcome, first graders, croon, croon, welcome, (insert child's name), croon, croon.
The birds they have flown to greet the morn and the children have come to the room, room."
We sang this to each child and said their name when it was their turn to go under the bridge. It was very special!








Welcome Olivia!











Then, we moms of the first graders walked to an area set up for a story. We lit a candle and each took turns reading a part of the story to the children. After the story we each presented a little necklace to our children. Asher got a dragon and Olivia, Izze, Tilly, and Isabella got heart pendants.

We then walked over to another part of the park where a spiral had been set up by Lucy's husband, Flavio. All the kids, oldest to youngest got to walk the spiral. When they got to the center, there was a little gift for them in a basket. Even Ceci and I walked the spiral. Bella and Olivia got star candle holders with a beeswax candle, and Ceci got a rose quartz stone in a pouch. After the spiral, we enjoyed a delicious potluck together. It was such a wonderful day!

I do have to admit that it was SUPER-HOT today, (103?) and unfortunately a bad fire started yesterday in Azusa. So by the time we got home, we were exhausted from the heat and the smokey air!! But this did not take away from the loveliness of our ceremony.











By the way, these flowers that I brought for our table are zinnias from our garden! Last April, we planted a bunch of mystery seeds from a packet called "bee friendly mix." Aren't they so pretty?!