Klahanie School
June 2021 Newsletter
We speak with more than our mouths. We listen with more than our ears.
Whether we’re a preschooler or a young teen, a graduating college senior or a retired person, we human beings all want to know that we’re accepted, that our being alive somehow makes a difference in the lives of others.
Relationships are like dances in which people truly to find whatever happens to be the mutual rhythm in their lives.
There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
June Curriculum Topics
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Continue gardening/food preparation from the garden opportunities–making our end of the year meal together to share. The class picked a variety of tantalizing delights that we will enjoy creating and enjoying together.
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Marine Life: Puget Sound beaches and grace and courtesy behavior with beaches and marine animals–being a dear friend/Klahanie School alumni parent as well as marine biologist educator at Vashon Nature Center, Maria Metler set us up early on educating early about Salish Sea etiquette for humans, and how important our role is with local marine life. We bask in the learnings of our surrounding kelp beds, eelgrass habitats and precious estuaries we hold here on Maury and Vashon islands. As families we encourage kind relationship building with your local beaches and will encourage the children to use their hands in beach and forest cleanups all seasons. Happy beach days to all!
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Classmate love: showing friendships and ideas to stay connected in the summer months
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Big cleaning projects-tactile/helpful project ideas at home
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Tie-Dying fun with Klahanie shirts as well as native plant dyes for peace flags
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Summer Solstice honoring
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PJs to school and favorite stuffy June 2 (please bring things you don’t mind getting dirty)
Graduation (very last day of the 2019-20 school year) Wednesday June 16th 10-12 Noon
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Following Graduation Day pickup: to simplify, and remain with COVID19 safeties, we encourage families to park down at KVI for beach picnic celebrations and enjoy time together. Make plans and make KVI on June 16th, Klahanie Beach Day! Please note: teachers will most likely not be able to attend KVI afterschool due to other commitments, we all send much love and celebrations to all!
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WE NEED YOUR HELP! Please save the date–pass the word around for SATURDAY AUGUST 7, 2021 In-Person & Virtual Livestreamed PIE AUCTION Scholarship Fundraiser. Please send the Eventbrite link below to order tickets–ticket sales mean the WORLD!
2020-2021 Reflection
During the ten precious months of our 2020-2021 school year, we were all able to share collective resiliency, creativity, innovation, adaptation, and great love and care to the school community, and the greater world we live in by sharing trusting space while practicing this new world. Thank you for the care you all showered teachers, school community celebrating our foundations of connection and witness to grow, to learn together as an amazing team. Mahalo for riding the river securely together. Such sweet inspirations of connection. You all have offered this school space with an inspiring level of presence, interest and kindness. The year has flown by and the degree of kindness this dynamic class has offered as a collective has been inspiring to assist nurturing and witnessing.
Thank you Teacher Austin Merrill and Laura Camner for your incredible skill-set talents founded deeply in the value of “follow the child” with each young person you mentor. Thank you for supporting so tenderly the Montessori absorption and practice and offering time to lead such meaningful and enriching circles and 1-1 lessons through the year adapting so smoothly and supportively. You both have been such a continued grounding delight to call brother-sister-friends and such a gift to witness the kindness and inquiry you two offer Klahanie children and families as well as your intuitive and educated background, we are so fortunate!
Thank you to our talented Specialists and subs Jonnie Steen for all your kindnesses. We are so fortunate, thank you so deeply for such support of our programming enrichment! Thank you for the t-shirt screening help from Kate Degarmo. Thank you Klahanie School parents for your daily presence, smiling eyes, vulnerabilities, honestys, resiliency and loving strength! You inspire the world by being You.
Wishing you all a joyful summer and hopeful to run into many of you during summer family adventures around our gorgeous islands. Keep your connections thriving and inspiring the island along the way.
Please enjoy the following, much needed quotes from our foundation, Dr. Maria Montessori:
“If we are among the men of good will who yearn for peace, we must lay the foundation for peace ourselves, by working for the social world of the child.” —International Montessori Congress, 1937
“The only true freedom for an individual is to have the opportunity to act independently … there is no such thing as an individual until a person can act by himself.” —Education and Peace
“Education is the best weapon for peace.” —Education and Peace
“The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.” —The Absorbent Mind
“The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch—enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of itself.” —Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook
“Here is an essential principal of education: to teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.” —From Childhood to Adolescence
“The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work.” —The Absorbent Mind
“An ordinary teacher cannot be transformed into a Montessori teacher, but must be created anew, having rid herself of pedagogical prejudices.” —Education for a New World
“She [the Montessori teacher] must acquire a moral alertness which has not hitherto been demanded by any other system, and this is revealed in her tranquility, patience, charity, and humility. Not words, but virtues, are her main qualifications.” —The Discovery of the Child
“It is not true,” says Dr. Montessori, “that I invented what is called the Montessori Method. I have studied the child, I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.”
Borrowed words I love to share each year with children venturing to other schools from Klahanie are the following:
Forever Young
Song and Lyrics by: Bob Dylan
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
Mahalo, Muchas Gracias, Merci beaucoup to such a loving, lovely, dynamic and deeply kind group of children I will miss dearly and look forward to the honored opportunity of witnessing their continued growth in self and community.
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
~Maya Angelou
Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of this jewel, and, in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.
~Fred Rogers
Much love and gratitude,
Klahanie School Team
Dedicated to my co-Teachers/co-Hearts Austin and Laura, and amazing Klahanie School Board and Klahanie School parents.
Love, Emmy
I’m proud of you, I’m proud of you. I hope that you are proud of you.
I’m proud of you, I’m proud of you, I hope that you are proud of you too.
~Fred Rogers
I’m proud of me, I’m proud of me. I hope that I am proud of me.
I’m proud of me, I’m proud of me. I feel my heart, I feel your heart, so tenderly.
~Emmy Graham (adapted from Fred Rogers’ I’m Proud Of You)
Please Take a Look to Make Sure you have the June Times. Thank you for a great school year!
Klahanie School 