May Crowning

I love the tradition of May Crowning (if you aren't Catholic, May Crowning is the tradition of honoring Mary by putting a crown of flowers on a statue of the Blessed Mother). 

Today was the Kindergarten May Crowning ceremony at my daughter's school.  The older grades do the traditional "crowning" in the church, but the Kindergarten kids have a special ceremony in which they bring flowers to put in vases in front of the Mary statue in the grotto.  They all dress up and bring in a cut flower to school, then process over the grotto while singing "Oh, Mary we crown thee with flowers today/Queen of the angels/Queen of the May".  Each child puts his or her flower in the vase, and when they are done we all (kids, teachers, parents) say a decade of the rosary, followed by singing Immaculate Mary.  Here's my daughter getting ready to give Mary her flower.

It's always so sweet to see the children so reverent and to hear their little voices in song.  Don't you just love all the tradition in the Catholic faith?