We had an eventful and joyous day on Friday, May 6th as we celebrated our annual May Day festival and our 35th anniversary! We hoped for a bright and sunny day for our students to dance around the Maypole and for our whole community to come together to celebrate. Mother Nature had other plans, though. It may have been raining outside but our gymnasium was filled with wonder and delight.
Honoring the rhythms and cycles of nature are a core part of Waldorf education. May Day, which lands about halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, is a festival our students look forward to all year. They spend weeks learning their May Day songs and dances with our Music and Chorus teacher, Nina Radanovic. Kindergarteners begin the day by delivering small bouquets of fresh flowers to our school neighbors. Parents arrive in the morning to decorate the school and bring flowers to the classes. The students spend the morning creating their May Crowns which they proudly wear all day.
The student procession begins with the 8th grade students walking to collect the first graders, then second graders, and so on. The student procession enters the gym, where their families and loved ones are waiting, and the festivities begin! This year, our 6th graders opened the festival with the North Skeleton Sword Dance and 8th graders followed with the Upton-upon-Severn stick dance as 7th graders played music, led by Orchestra teacher, Michael Cameron.
The Maypole songs and dances followed! Our grades students each collected a ribbon as they danced and sang around the Maypole. There was delight, beauty, and laughter in the air. After the completion of each dance, 8th graders joyfully passed out clementines to the students who performed. One could hear the “oohs and ahs” as the Maypole dancers created patterns with the Maypole ribbons. Parents and other community members even joined in at the end!
May Day came to an end and the 35th anniversary festivities began! We were so thrilled to come together as a community to celebrate 35 years of Susquehanna Waldorf School. SWS’s first teacher, Miss Linda, joined us to talk about the early days of SWS and what she finds so special about our school by the river. We had SWS trivia (congratulations to Magistra Sweeney, Tseng Lao Shi, and Ms Tucker for their perfect score!), a cake walk, an alum vs students tug of war (students won!), and more. It was so good to socialize and share food and games together! We are so blessed to have such a caring and vibrant community.
