We’re really looking forward to the time when we can be together in person again — especially as it’s May Day and time for dancing and lemon peppermints and cake walks and a giant school picnic. This year we are marking the occasion with remembering our festivals of past years. Enjoy this glimpse put together by our office, with music from strings teacher, Justine Jeanotte.
May Day 2019
We really enjoy our school-wide festivals as an opportunity to gather together for seasonal fun. May Day is particularly beloved as a celebration of spring and the re-awakening of the natural world around us. It is particularly photogenic too, with flowers and brightly colored ribbons. Our school traditions include making flower crowns, a cake walk, bubbles, lemon peppermints (a peppermint “straw” inserted into a whole lemon), a community picnic and dancing around a maypole.
A Note from Missi About Spiral of Light
Dear families and friends,
We are truly into the darkest days of winter with solstice just ten days away. Amazingly, it will be lighter when we return from break in January than it is now! While I find myself longing for the light to return, I am also grateful for the opportunities of reflection that this season offers.
For me the season really kicks off with the Spiral of Light festival that we celebrated this past Sunday. For those who haven't had the chance to come yet, imagine a room all in darkness. In the center of a spiral of evergreen boughs laid on the floor, a candle is lit. Solitary and dim, it barely begins to light the room. Everyone sitting around the edges is swathed in darkness. Our sweet-voiced teachers are singing an array of seasonal songs from both Christian and Jewish traditions: they sing in delicious harmonies in English, German, and French. Through the singing, family after family walks the spiral to light a candle and set it down on golden paper stars sprinkled among the boughs. Bit by bit the room becomes filled with a golden glow. Suddenly, I realize that I can make out the faces of the people sitting across the room from me. Friends old and new, grown-ups and children. I am struck by the lovely metaphor that I have just witnessed, articulated in the words of one of the carols being sung: "Each little child shall shed her light, till all the world is warm and bright."
In this season of veritable darkness, I appreciate the unique light that each child and each parent shines into the world. Thank you for sharing yourselves with this precious school community.
Reflectively yours,
Missi
— From our newsletter, December 11, 2018
Michaelmas Festival 2018
Each September we gather to celebrate Michaelmas, our first seasonal festival of the school year. Our festivals connect us to the natural world and renew our connections between classes, and among parents and friends. Michaelmas is a celebration of courage and harvest. This time of year we observe the seasonal changes in the natural world as plant life bears fruit and then begins to die back, leaves turn and animals prepare for the coming winter. Personally we find ourselves of two minds — trepidation for the shorter, darker, cold, wet days ahead, even as we feel a surge of energy and a counter force to the slowing in nature around us. The story of St. George fighting a dragon with the angel Michael’s help embodies this time of year, a call to gather courage and engage the dragons we need to battle and transform.
As the pictures below reflect, our festival includes challenges for all ages, a baked potato feast utilizing the bounty of our school garden, and a pageant of grade school students to both sing and tell the story of St. George taming the dragon.
Thank you so much to parent Julie Rings for sharing her beautiful photography of the festival with all of us. We are grateful!
May Day at Madrona School
Spring is upon us and at Madrona School, like many other Waldorf schools in the northern hemisphere, we celebrate with a May Day festival. Our traditions include making flower crowns, an all-too popular cake walk, lemon peppermints, maypole dancing, community picnicking and May cake and wine. It is a festive, beautiful day at school for all ages, especially joyful when the sun shines! We treasure the couple of times each year when we gather as a whole school community.
Here are some images from our most recent festival, taken by a few of our photographer parents, as well as the office -- thank you to all who shared their pictures!
A Season for Candles and Singing
The Shortest Day, by Susan Cooper, begins: And so the shortest day came and the year died / And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world / Came people singing, dancing, / To drive the dark away....
December at Madrona School brings candlelight and community singing. We gather together for our Spiral of Light festival, and the second grade brings us an annual Santa Lucia celebration. The classrooms sprout greenery and show off colorful windows, too. Our days are short but packed with a sense of festive anticipation. Enjoy this glimpse into this year's December.
Michaelmas at Madrona School
The weather turned fall-like just in time for our annual Michaelmas festival, and while the grade school had to practice their pageant in the rain in the morning, by festival time, the sun was shining! We had a lovely afternoon. Challenges for all ages, including boat races and an obstacle course for the young ones, and balance beams, pillow jousting, slack lines, tug o'war, giant knitting, and dragon bread roasting for older children. The grade school challenges concluded with a slightly ominous trip through the 7th grade-designed and run dragon's lair (tucked into the woods), where treasure awaited the brave. Then we feasted on potatoes from the garden, and a beautiful dragon's bread offered by the 2nd grade. The afternoon concluded with an all-grade school pageant -- gnomes, shooting stars, royalty, a brave knight and, in the end, a tamed dragon. Happy Autumn!
Madrona School Alphabet (F)
As we continue to celebrate what makes a Madrona School education unique through the alphabet, we have reached the letter 'F' ... for Field Trips and Festivals!
Field trips take Waldorf education on the road, and many of our field trips are regular and highly anticipated additions to the curriculum.
As many of you know, and your children experience, our early childhood classes are outside each week -- to Lowery Farm, as well as each Friday to other island parks and beaches. Our young students, in full weather-appropriate gear, make a colorful and energetic addition to our community, and they are able to fully engage in the outdoors in a way that is just not possible in our smaller play yards.
Many field trips are designed to enhance the grade school curriculum. They become rites of passage too -- trips to look forward to as you move through the grades. In May, our third grade will embark on their first overnight, to Pioneer Farm near Mt. Rainier, to help wrap up their year long study of the practical arts. Earlier this year, our fifth grade made a trip to the Hoh rainforest during their botany block, getting creative when their trip fell smack in the middle of the government shutdown. And our sixth grade trekked overnight to Mount St. Helens for a geology block. What natural riches we have to explore in our backyard!
And we offer trips to build community between the regional Waldorf schools, too. Beginning in fourth grade with a potlatch on Whidbey Island, our students meet with other area Waldorf schools to explore common themes from their year. In fifth grade they gather and compete in a Pentathalon; in sixth grade they participate in Medieval games; in 7th grade they enjoy a Renaissance Faire. All wonderful opportunities to spread their wings a bit, and meet other Waldorf students beyond their class communities.
Festivals are a vital part of the rhythm in our community's year. Celebrating the passing of the seasons, festivals also offer the opportunity to come together and socialize school-wide. In September, we mark Michaelmas, with a re-telling of the legend of St. Michael and the dragon, playing through challenges that remind us of our inner strength and resolve as we move into the darker and wetter time of the year. Highlights of this festival include crawling through the dragon's lair built by our 8th grade, and feasting together on potatoes from our school garden. In November, the story of St. Martin illuminates kindness and generosity to strangers, and our students revisit his story and mark the dark night with lantern walks and songs. In May we celebrate the burgeoning of spring with May Day festivities, making flower crowns and dancing around a maypole. It is a joyful, colorful end to our festival year.
