Last night we all went to school for the Grade Two Lantern Walk. This is a Waldorf School thing we do every year, and this year we actually got to hear the story behind it, which filled in some gaps. It’s taking note of St Martin and Martinmas (which has been mentioned other years, but hasn’t made enough of an impression for me to make sense of it, other than that the school has a coat drive and the Lantern Walks happen around the time of Martinmas.) Wikipedia has more about the whole idea of Martinmas if you want to look: Wikipedia Link
The story goes that, before he was St Martin, a Roman soldier gave half his cloak (and possibly some bread) to a cold hungry begger thereby saving him. Now this is taking note of at our school at least, on St Martin’s day, Nov 11, with among other things, children taking plates of bread (or cookies) to neighboring houses and singing, and by collecting coats at school to donate to local shelters.
Every year the early childhood classes and lower grades, at least up to third, since they went on their Lantern Walk last night too, make lanterns, and go out with them singing. Last year we walked on a woods path at someone’s house, which, while pretty, was lacking something. This year, having heard the whole story of St Martin as part of last night’s lantern walk, I can see more of what it was lacking. Last year’s teacher was big on the lanterns pushing away the darkness, which bothered me, since we are only beginning to come in to the dark time of the year now. He seemed a bit wrong headed about getting rid of the dark at the beginning of November, although one of the songs on the page all the teachers have to work from does say “down with darkness”. Logan’s class opted not to use that one this year, she says.
Last night, instead of just a walk, we had a “St Martin’s Evening”. We saw a little of the movement activities the class does daily (beanbag tossing and catching and stick games — to get them all working as a group I suspect!), then parents got to try participating in the games with the class. We heard the story of St Martin. We heard the class play their flutes, and then children, parents, teachers and company lit lanterns and went out in to the neighborhood with plates of food.
On their flutes, in the classroom, Grade Two played “Bonny Boat” (Sky Boat Song), and then two Lantern Walk songs, which are on the page I’ve scanned and put in below: the Lantern Song, and I’m Walking With My Lantern. Those plus the second one on the page we’ve sung every year at Lantern Walks. The other, I only heard for the first time last year, although evidently it has been around, perhaps it’s just not used at the kindergarten level. Parents got to sing along with the Lantern Walk songs as the class played. The flute playing has changed and improved notably since last year, although it helps that they are playing songs I know and recognize that contain more than three notes now. I suspect it also helps that Mrs Marooney is a flute (recorder) teacher. Almost all eyes were on her as the children played — and the one whose eyes and body couldn’t stay on Mrs Marooney seemed to be following the song well anyway, just not being still at the same time. Logan was completely focused on her teacher and her music, something we don’t see at home, but she doesn’t have a pentatonic recorder at home to work with, only a diatonic (I think — the one with eight holes), which she tries to use with the same fingering. If you look at the larger version of the picture you can see the words an the music to the songs we heard last night.
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