Graduation at home

[Chris in PA]

Hi all,

My dd has decided she would like to do her graduation at home. I am looking for ideas to make this a special event for her. Has anyone done this for their dc? Any ideas would be appreciated. :001_smile:

 

Thanks

[Brindee]

I went to one that 2 families put together for their kids. A guy and a girl that had grown up together, homeschooled, and were graduating. They rented a little hall, and invited about 30-40 people. They dressed up, did speeches, handed flowers to their parents and thanked them for their dedication in homeschooling.

 

The girl's dad did their class speech. The two graduates did a song (she played piano, he played cello). The moms read their history. The boy's dad did a little speech, then the dad's handed the diplomas to their respective child. They had a dedication prayer for them at the end. Oh, they had a friend play the grad. march at the beginning, and they marched up to the front. At the end they marched back out with her playing.

 

I can't remember all the details, but it was an awesome ceremony! Maybe this isn't exactly what you were looking for, but I think it was very special and something the "kids" will always remember!

[Nan in Mass]

It was very like one of our big extended family birthday parties. We also invited my son's best friend (his other friends live too far away to come or we would have invited them, too) and his coach. Everyone gave him a present and we had takeout Chinese food and I made a cake. I didn't want to put him on the spot so I didn't arrange any speeches, but various people offered toasts while he was openning the presents, and my son offered a thank you speech of his own which he had thought out beforehand. Guess I needn't have worried about it GRIN. I have a great picture of him and his best friend toasting each other with wine glasses of milk LOL. The cake was chocolate and they had gotten themselves milk to wash it down and then decided to toast to their having made it to graduation. To make it more like a graduation party and less like a birthday party, I got a big bulletin board and put up pictures of his travels, his gymnastics medals, the letter accepting him to college (a fancy document at this particular college), a few papers and some artwork, and his transcript. I also collected all the books he had read for school and lined them up on the windowsill of the big bow window. It was fun to see it all collected together. I got a big yellow smily face balloon because it reminded me of my son, and we decorated with ordinary balloons and crepe paper. It was nice and low key, very much like his homeschooling career. People gave him things for his upcoming trip to Europe or things for college as presents. A few days later, I delivered him to the summer sailing program at his college. Along the way we stopped at the giant globe at the Delorme company. We walked around and around it and my son pointed out all the places he's been and all the places he wants to visit and told me interesting things he had learned. We consider that his real graduation.

-Nan

[Tokyomarie]

When my second dd graduated we had an open house with a short "ceremony" tucked in the middle. The open house ran from- if I remember correctly- 2pm through 5pm. At 3pm we presented dd with her diploma. Dh, oldest dd, and I all said a few words. Since she is a musician and was going to attend a university-based music school, we had her give a mini-concert. She played her violin audition pieces and some Irish fiddle pieces.

 

As for the open house portion, we decorated with a display of photos and memorabilia from her school years. I also bought a college sweatshirt and a stuff animal mascot for the college she had decided to attend and included those in her display. Since we didn't have high school colors, we chose to decorate with her college school colors as the theme. We had lots of food and cake.

 

My dd didn't have a large circle of her own friends. Even so, we still had about 40-45 people with family and friends of ours from church. That was just right for our indoor & outdoor (deck) space.

 

If your daughter has any special hobbies or extracurricular activities and/or special plans for college, I would play those up in any event you have.

[water2wine]

I have never done this but I think it sounds like a really nice idea. I would think a neat theme cake would be fun especially if she knows what she is going to do in life or of things that she really likes. But I mean older style of course. And maybe a scrapbook like a year book if you had the pictures of that would be neat and you could have people sign it for her. You could maybe make it at night time and have it be a formal dinner. Maybe get someone that is a friend to be a waiter or something like that and have the tables be all formal with candle light.

 

Not sure if any of that works or not. But what fun it is planning all that. Hope you have a wonderful time! :)

[Susan C.]

We had ds graduation at home, he came down the stairs to pomp and circumstance, to 30-40 friends and family waiting. Under ten minute ceremony, I talked about a minute, dh and I gave him his diploma, and a pastor friend of ours said a prayer for him. Then we grilled hamburgers and ate and visited. (We are casual people). My mom brought a huge cake, and got plastic stemware to give toasts with sparkling apple cider, our kids teen friends thought that was funny!

[Chris in PA]

Love these ideas! I already have taken something from each post to incorporate into her day. Thanks so much ladies! If anyone else has something to add, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[LoriM]

Hi all,

My dd has decided she would like to do her graduation at home. I am looking for ideas to make this a special event for her. Has anyone done this for their dc? Any ideas would be appreciated. :001_smile:

 

Thanks

 

My daughter set her graduation date and time quite specifically, and then we invited several friends. We ordered a lovely diploma from homeschooldiplomas.com and presented it to her. She then graduated from the community college on August 2, and headed off to the university August 16, so it was a busy summer! (She since has graduated from the university, and married! Wow, time flies.)

 

My younger daughter has chosen 05/05/10 for her graduation, and I expect we'll do much the same thing. The only difference is that she has requested a class ring, so we'll probably present that as her graduation gift (as well as her diploma).

 

LoriM