Festivals in the Nursery and Kindergarten are celebrated differently from festivals in the rest of the school. They are simpler, as is appropriate for the very young child.

All the festivals have a magic about them. Please do not explain them to your child. This way they can experience the true joy of the event.

Michaelmas – Friday closest to September 29^th

This is the time of harvest and the Kindergarten children, clothed in silk plant dyed capes, plant bulbs as St. Michael watches. Then they go to Mother Earth to receive a polished a

pple. The Nursery children watch the Kindergarten children, and when all is complete and Mother Earth is sitting quietly, the Nursery children then go to Mother Earth and receive their apple. It is a simple and quiet celebration.

The Kindergarten children also watch a puppet show about the story of Michaelmas, and the Nursery children look forward to when they are old enough to experience this puppet show as well.

Halloween

Our Halloween celebration is very low key. Nursery children help carve one or 2 pumpkins. They find such pleasure in the creation of a simple face. The Kindergarteners dress in autumn-colored capes and leaf crowns, and take a walk through the woods, waving the wands made of wood as they change the colors of leaves of the trees.

Martinmas Lantern Walk – November

On the appointed evening, the children gather at dusk in the meadow and sing a song and light their lanterns. Then they walk with their parents and teachers and siblings around the campus and through the woods, carefully holding their lanterns with burning candles in them, and singing songs. The celebration ends at a camp fire for a story, then we share the bread the children made and the apples the parents baked.

In the Nursery parents come into the class and help their child make a lantern, but in the Kindergarten the children make their lanterns by themselves.

The Nursery and Kindergarten Lantern walks are held on the same night, but are separate. If you have a child in both classes we encourage you to choose one or have one parent accompany one child and the other go with the second child. It is best for the Nursery children to experience this walk very gently, without the older children present. The Lantern Walk for Grades 1-3 is held on a different night.

Spiral of Light – December

The Kindergarten children take part in the Spiral of Light, in early December. Nursery children do not take part, but may, if they have an older sibling in the Kindergarten, have an opportunity to watch.

The celebration begins in a dark room with boughs laid on the floor in the shape of a spiral. The children are guided around the spiral by a teacher as they make the journey to the center and light their candle, lodged in an apple. They then walk back out of the spiral, and as they go, place the candle on a gold star on the floor. When all the children have finished their journey, together they have created the beauty of light in the darkness of night. The quiet mood of the event is enhanced with the soft music of a lyre and the glow of the candles as the parents watch their children make their way through the spiral.

St. Nicholas – December 6^th

St. Nicholas Day is celebrated by the children and their teachers in the classroom. The day before, the children leave a slipper or shoe out in the classroom, or they leave a cookies for St. Nicholas and a carrot for his horse. When they arrive the next day they go through the day as usual until story time when the story of magic of the night is told and the basket of clementines and nuts are shared.

May Day - May 1^st

The Kindergarten celebrates May Day with the rest of the school, doing a simple dance around the May Pole on the front lawn in front of the Kindergarten Building. The Nursery children watch the older children dance, and the whole school participates in a picnic on the grass afterwards.
The Nursery class has a Maypole in the classroom just their size, so they know what to do, but dancing around the large pole with ribbons is what they will look forward to in the following years.

Whitsun - early June

Whitsun is a festival celebrated only by the children in Kindergarten and Nursery. The Nursery children join the Kindergarteners for the first time on the play yard. We gather and form a large circle while the violin sets the mood and the children are quiet. Then a grade school child brings out two cages of doves. We all sing a song and they are released.  It is a wonderful way to end the year.