How To Host An Online Preschool Graduation
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Are you considering a virtual preschool graduation? Before we get started…If you’re new here, My name is Dena, and I have been a child care center director for 21 years and love what I do, but it is WORK! My goal is to help other providers with their childcare program and help relieve the stress that the daycare world brings.
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So, let’s talk about how to set up a virtual graduation. Our center normally has an in person pre-k graduation ceremony every year inviting parents and relatives to attend. It is held in a local church auditorium. Each child wears a cap and gown and is presented with a diploma during the ceremony. We have about 30 graduates. The children learn songs to perform and poems to recite. Every parent LOVES seeing their little one on stage singing their hearts out. is a favorite event that parents, relatives, friends, and teachers look forward to and love attending.
Since the pandemic, more and more businesses are hosting virtual events, so why not host a virtual graduation? Yes, you can even have the children at home with their parents during the ceremony. Here’s how to create and host a preschool graduation ceremony completely online.
1. Set a date and time.
Decide what day and time to host your online ceremony. An evening or weekend will usually work best for everyone. Be sure and give parents plenty of notice. Simply email them stating that you will host a virtual graduation ceremony this year and give them the date and time.
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2. Order cap & gowns.
This is optional but adds a nice touch. Do this asap to ensure they arrive on time. We recently ordered cap & gowns through Kindergrad. We ordered the complete package for $13.95 plus S&H. It includes a cap with tassel, gown, and a fill in the blank diploma. We create and use our own personalized diploma but it’s cheaper to order the package with the diploma rather than the cap and gown individually. We charge the parents a graduation fee to cover the expense. Kindergrad states to allow 3 weeks or more for delivery, but we usually receive them within a week (without the rush shipping). Amazon also has great cap & gown options for under $20.00 and if you have prime, you will often receive the gowns in 2 days or less.
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3. Outline the ceremony.
Make an outline of what you want to include in the ceremony. Who will welcome everyone? Who do you want to host or do the talking? Do you want the children to sing any songs or recite poems? Do you want to recognize each child individually? Once you know what songs and poems you want the children to learn, email parents the audio files and lyrics. Tell them to practice daily with their child. You can use the Marco video app or send them short videos from your phone if you need to demonstrate the songs or poems. If you are providing care for the children, be sure and practice with them daily starting at least 4-6 weeks in advance. You can download the poems, songs, and pledges we are using for our ceremony here.
4. Create a Zoom account.
Zoom is an online meeting room with video and audio. They offer a free account if you keep your “meeting” at 40 minutes or less and under 100 participants. You can upgrade for $15 per month. Our ceremony will be held May 20th at 7pm so I plan to upgrade mid-May and cancel after the ceremony, just in case we go longer than 40 minutes or have more than 100 people joining. You can also check out Go To Meeting for another alternative.
5. Have practice meetings.
Zoom does require a little bit of a learning curve. I would suggest taking a week or so to have practice meetings and invite a few friends or relatives to experiment on. Once you create an account, watch the tutorials, and have a few practice meetings, you should be comfortable enough with the functions.
6. Set up appointments for cap & gown pick up.
After the gowns have arrived, set up a time for parents to come by your center or home and pick up their child’s cap & gown, and diploma. You may also want to give them a nice printed graduation ceremony program for keepsake. You can use my ceremony program template here for free. You will need to create a free Canva account to edit the template.
When they stop by your center or home, consider setting up a little backdrop to take a quick cap & gown photo for the parents.
7. Have a parent zoom practice.
Have a practice Zoom meeting a few days before the actual ceremony for all parents so that they feel comfortable on the day of. There’s no need to do a ceremony run through. Just make sure they can join the meeting without issues and know how to turn on their cameras for video.
8. Send the Invite link.
About 1 week before the “real” ceremony, make sure you email the ceremony invitation link to anyone you want to join on the day of. Parents will be able to share the link with friends and family. Also email the outline of the ceremony so they know what to expect and what order the songs and poems are in. You can download my ceremony outline here.
Ask them to join the ceremony with their child dressed in their cap & gown. Instruct teachers and parents to join with their videos (cameras) on but instruct all others; relatives, friends, and grandparents to join with video off. Zoom will give them this option when joining. This will allow only the host, teachers, and the children to be visible. The people not on video will be hidden but will be able to see and hear everyone. Suggest that they use laptops or computers if possible. Zoom will work on phones but has limited options.
9. Host the ceremony.
When starting the live ceremony, I would suggest muting everyone attending except you and maybe another teacher or administrator. You can start the ceremony by welcoming everyone and talking to all the graduates and families. You can then ask the kids to sing through the songs they have learned. You could say something like “Ok, now we are going to sing the Alphabet Swing”.
I would keep them muted but share the music through your computer for them to sing along with. Again, there are Zoom tutorial videos that teach you how to screen share and play music. If they are muted, you won’t be able to hear them, but everyone will see their little faces and lips moving and hear the songs. Use songs that have children singing on the tracks so that you hear child voices.
I did try to unmute everyone during a trial run (teachers posing as the kids) in order to hear everyone singing, but there was a noticeable delay and everyone was not singing together. It caused a lot of confusion. I also tried to unmute everyone during the poems, but the same thing happened. As much as they tried to speak together, the delay was terrible. For this reason, I would leave all of the children muted the entire ceremony.
Have a time allotted to recognize each child. Have the host mention their name, favorite part of school and what they want to be when they grow up (you need to ask them these questions in advance).
When talking about each child, choose to “spotlight” that child on zoom so that their video is expanded larger to the middle of the screen. Have them smile and hold up their diploma. Consider assigning a co-host during the meeting so that the co-host can spotlight videos while you or the host is talking.
For example, you would something like this..…”Our next graduate is Adam Baker (Adam is spotlighted). Adam’s favorite part of school was playing outside. He wants to be a doctor when he grows up.”
Another idea is to make a surprise powerpoint presentation or video of the children and play it during the ceremony. You can include pictures of the children throughout the year and attach them to music. Everyone will love this! Email the video file to parents after for keepsake.
Conclusion:
If the virtual ceremony seems overwhelming, you could always host an “in-person” graduation and limit the number of guests to 2 or 4 per family and practice social distancing. If you go this route, simply apply the same outline to your “in-person” ceremony and keep the cap & gowns until the ceremony. The children can get dressed right before it starts preventing the parents from seeing them in their caps & gowns until they walk.
I hope you find these suggestions useful to help you decide what is best for your childcare setting. Have ideas? Leave your ideas for a virtual ceremony in the comments below! We’d love to hear from you!
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