Planning a Home school Graduation

For the past few years I have co-planned our home school group Graduation & Achievements Ceremony with another fantastic homeschooling mom from our group. We have a wonderful mom who is one of the group founding members who officiates the festivities.
I thought I would share a few ideas from our ceremony/celebration planning.

We plan this very simply with cupcakes and lemonade, and a few fun supplies found on amazon.com. You can serve what ever you like!! We decided to go this route because it required very little work for us, and nothing of the attending families, other than a few dollars to contribute. The cupcakes are fun and yummy and require no plates or cutlery, just small napkins.

Our beautiful FREE location is at a park on the water under a beautiful pavilion that needs nothing other than a few balloons, and the beauty of our children and families participating.

We do book a rain date given the outdoor location. If this appeals to you, you can call around your city to see what is required to reserve a public location like this. We simply fill out a small form online and submit with our date and time for approval. You could also do this as a backyard or even beach event.

Our goal was to make this event short, simple and welcoming for an eclectic group of families.          I created simple documents with templates found in ms word. There are so many choices and options out there, you could have lots of fun with this part!

Here is a list of the few documents we use:
Group invitation - a doc outlining the event details sent out via various forms of social media and email to reach all members of our group.
Program - event schedule for the ceremony given to each family on the day
Class of "Year" - For us... this is a list of all the children participating, and what they are celebrating.  This could be a special achievement, milestone, graduation or simply an awesome year!!

We have a very diverse group ranging from very structured home school schedules, to life learners/unschoolers, so everyone celebrates their year in their chosen way.
Thank you Cards for the families participating are given as well. I simply print these.

Presentations - Our parents are invited to bring a certificate, gift, card or keepsake of their choice to present to their children. I did create a template for a fully customizable certificate that families are welcome to use, however it is amazing to see all of the beautiful certificates that families create on their own!!

We even had one family gift their children with beautiful plants for their garden 💓 I LOVE how individual this is for all participating.

The smaller children gather on a blanket laid out in the centre of the pavilion surrounded by family and loved ones while the older guys (should they choose) are seated close by. I love this idea that my co - mommy planner thought of.

The ceremony unfolds as follows:

• Opening -The children and families are welcomed with a few beautiful words about the year.
• The parents are called upon to make presentations to their children with photos taken by loved ones to capture these moments.
• Closing- Lovely words of inspiration and thanks are sent forth to all for coming, and we toast the occasion with a cold lemonade!!
• The kids are all given cute graduation bubbles, and this year we did fun "Class of 2014" friendship bracelets. 

That's it!! 

Again this could be as elaborate as you wish to suit the needs and requests of your group.

Program and List of children below.

These are from Xander's graduation from Montessori Primary.

 The seals I used on my docs are from amazon - this is a simple one I liked Blank Certificate Seal - Silver as is the certificate paper - Metallic Silver Parchment Certificate .

If you would like my free certificate template that you can customize you are welcome to download it here!

These are very simple bubble tags (from 2012) I created with word, attached with silver ribbon. I purchased these ones this year - Smiley Face Graduate Bubble Bottles  

Thank you card below. I printed these on card stock.

Our balloons are purchased from the dollar store morning of.

There is a wonderful playground on the other side of the site so families that wish to stay are able have a picnic lunch, and our children play and have FUN after ward!!!

I LOVED this post from Living Montessori now posted about home school graduation here !!

Our festivities are short because the kids are anxious to play and have fun!!

Thanks for visiting with us!