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Planning a Homeschool Graduation
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
After 13 years of home education we graduated our first and it was time to celebrate!
I've been sharing about all the thoughts and feelings behind this season on IG but I wanted to share a bit of planning the actual grad ceremony/celebration for those looking for ideas!
Consider the Grad
I have 2 kids and I know their grad celebrations will be different. My oldest doesn't love being the centre of attention and has specific ideas of what is fun. We were VERY intentional to be sure we were planning a celebration that would honour him and stay within what he would find enjoyable.
The Outfit
I know this will be a very different process when my daughter graduates but my son hates shopping and he's 6'9 so the options for dress clothes are very limited. We opted out of trying to find a suit and just went for some nice dress clothes that he could wear again multiple times.
The FOOD
As an 18 year old young man, the FOOD was a big deal. I decided early that at the end of the school year the last thing I wanted to do was a ton of food prep so we knew we'd be catering a meal for the party. We didn't need a full catered supper but food is very important to my son and I knew that would be a big part of the celebration for him.
I researched local caterers, set a budget and picked the one I wanted to go with. I then had my son go over the options and choose the menu. It was a fun way for him to be involved.
If you're local - we used EB's Catering and the food was phenomenal as always! The portions were generous (buffet style), they do all the set up, bring all serving dishes and utensils and also provide sturdy disposal plates, cutlery and napkins (which made clean up a breeze). We also had a good amount of left overs which was so nice after a weekend of hosting!
The Venue
June weather in SK is unpredictable at best so we rented a space in a local church that was the perfect size for our group. That night ended up with severe weather and torrential downpour so we're very thankful we went with an indoor option. My grad speech was actually interrupted by everyone's phone's blowing up with an emergency alert for a tornado in the area and urging people to seek shelter and go to the basement. (We did a quick check and determined that the tornado was at least 30 min away so we continued with someone watching the radar and window lol).
The Entertainment
Rather than the typical slideshow we did something a little different and it was a hit for the whole crowd. We used Kahoot! to create an online trivia quiz all about the grad that people could join using their phone and the game code to answer live.
It got very competitive and got everyone engaged, talking, laughing, reminiscing and learning about the grad. I highly recommend. (You will need a laptop, projector, screen and wifi though).
The game has a leaderboard that updates after every question round and so everyone was cheering and heckling. It took us around 30 minutes to play.
On each table, we also put a paper based BINGO game titled "How Much Like the Grad are You?" where people got points for things that had in common with our son. We of course had prizes for all of the games which I always think increases engagement.
We had a specific kids table for our younger guests and I created custom grad and Kai based activity pages. These were a hit! The kids were working on them the whole time and all the other teen boys grabbed them as well lol.
On all of tables we put packets of mini UNO (which we like to call "purse UNO") for people to play.
The teens definitely played it and we encouraged people to take them home as well.
We also had little bottles of bubbles (with a grad hat top) on every table and these were also enjoyed.
The Speeches
My husband and I did the main speeches and it was really nice to get a chance to share and celebrate our son with the whole group. I got more emotional than expected but the emergency tornado phone alerts gave me time to compose lol.
After my speech we played "pomp and circumstance" and awarded him his diploma. For the occasion I made a pretty diploma on Canva, printed it on fancy paper and put it in a leather diploma cover I purchased on Amazon. Easy peasy.
Good friends (AKA Fake grandparents) also surprised us with a speech that was very sweet and funny.
Though my son had initially not planned to say anything, he gave an impromptu speech at the end that was very sweet.
The Decor
We had roughly an hour booked for set up so we kept things pretty simple!
Balloon Arch - purchased a pack on Amazon and filled most of the balloons before we got to the venue. It was still a beast to wrangle (thank you to my SILs for doing that!)
Kai through the Years - I used Canva to create headshots of Kai through the years and added a grad cap to each photo. It made for a fun backdrop and of course all his friends wanted to take one home lol.
Other than that we just had coordinating napkins, cups, centre pieces, etc. I based the dusty blue colour off his outfit (and we also used small florals on the tables to tie in with his shirt). I loved the colour scheme and it was nice to add a pop of colour to the standard black and gold of all grad decor. We also had a large "GRAD" foil balloon for part of the arch that popped and couldn't be salvaged. Note - it needs to be blown up by mouth not machine!
That's a Wrap!
Overall it was such a great night. My son felt celebrated and honoured and I think we were able to engage an audience that was a mix of adults, a lot of teens and young kids!
I knew that in addition to a party I wanted to include a short "ceremony" to mark the occasion and I'm glad we did.
BONUS Tip!
All of our family lives out of town so we were hosting everyone for meals and hangouts prior to the event. One activity that engaged all ages was Backyard BINGO!
I bought actual BINGO sheets and dabbers and downloaded an app that would generate the "balls" so we could call them out. I bought prizes for the winners and made up fun shapes that we were trying to get like grad cap, H for homeschool, and starburst. It was a lot of fun!
Grad Gifts
We used time we were all together to give the other grads their gifts as well and I thought I'd share what we got all the guys as they can be hard to buy for!
KNIVES My husband and son are knife connoiseurs and we always have a lot of knives around for various purposes. We bought all the guys a fixed blade knife with sheath and it went over well!
Looking for the way to GET your high school student to grad? Check out my highschool courses for in depth, engaging material with interesting and hands on activities!
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