Klahanie School March 2025 Newsletter

Transitions are almost always signs of growth, but they can bring feelings of loss. To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind.

When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.

~Fred Rogers, Life’s Journeys According to Mister Rogers

Reminders/ Thank You/ Calendar:

No School/No PM Session Wednesday March 26 & Thursday March 27: Professional Development Days teacher time focused on:

Spring Student Records Final Assessments & Year Completions/ Summer Planning
Education training(s) & meetings
Ongoing class inservice needs (Montessori classrooms material switch outs/creations based on units and student progressions).

Thank you for the very sweet Valentines and helping during the Valentines Bake Sale, thank you parents for all the support!

Thank you Parent Marta Searles for making playdough every month and creating a wonderful library for us each month!

Thank you for submitting Vashon Thriftway Receipts with your full name and phone number on the top of each receipt for an ongoing important 1% fundraiser we fund scholarships with!

*DUE: Sept 2025-Aug 2026 RE-Enrollment, remaining spots opening up to new enrollees, all welcome and thank you for referrals. Thank you for going over the checklist link provided with all documents to read over prior to registration. Check-List Before Registering

Returning Klahanie School families, please register through your jovial portal at http://www.jovial.org/klahanieschool/family

Klahanie School Form New Family Registration Please go to https://www.jovial.org/klahanieschool/hello

Local Parent Coach in Interpersonal-Neurobiology expert Betty Peralta Seek the support your child and family deserve with guidenances from local expert, Betty Peralta. Please find her valuable information and book an appointment or her parent talks through to ideas and support, Alta Avenues Betty peraltA, MIT, MS-MHC, IMH-E(III) Interpersonal Neurobiology | Alta

Vashon Youth and Family Services updated Resource Page! Island Resources — VYFS

March 2025 Topics

Ramadan! Thank you Nadia’s parents Omar Malik and Gretta Stimson for volunteering time to come into class Monday March 2nd to share about Ramadan as their family!

Some Sensory Ramadan fun we shall share this month:

Moon and Star Sensory Bin – Using a blue or purple colored base material like dyed rice or beans, we add a small moon and star cutouts made from felt or cardboard. Children can “find” the moon and stars, discussing their importance in Ramadan.

“Iftar” Food Preparation – Setting up a pretend food preparation station with small-sized plastic plates, bowls, utensils, and “food” items like chopped vegetables, fruits, and pita bread. Children can practice setting up a simple Iftar meal.

Ramadan Calendar: Creating a visual calendar with pockets or spaces to place small objects each day, representing the days of Ramadan. Children have the opportunity to actively participate in adding the daily items, learning about the passing of time.

We need a Practical Life Donation Please: Dates for food preparation of date pitting and sensory date tray.

“Charity Box” Sorting – where we will Set up a donation box with different items like clothes, toys, and food. Children can sort and categorize items, learning about the importance of giving to charity during Ramadan. Thank you for donations that we seek to donate to the Senior Center or an off island center.

Safety Awareness: Honoring past Specialist, local legend Fire Department volunteer and Retired Principal Mr. Mike Kirk and take some time to look at one of our Outstanding Island Community Members. Mr. Kirk was Principal of all three of the schools at different times in his incredible career and one of our most beloved community members. We will re-explore fire safety awarenesses he shared with our school as well as what it means to do the Little-Big things in community. Please enjoy the links below to get more understanding of Mr. Kirk as a pivotal example of local Protective Factor practices to an inspiring degree, and open opportunities with your children to talk about safe spaces, and practices of self care in environments.

September 26, 2023 ~ History of the Vashon Island School District with Mike Kirk , 50 years of service: Fire department volunteer hits major milestone | Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber, Mike Kirk honored by fire department – The Riptide

Patience and finding calm in busy moments: Using Compassionate Listening and Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practices as well as improv games, 4-Square Breathing, Brain Gym, we will explore moments when we feel the most impatient or overwhelmed sensory and self-supportive practices we can anchor into during those moments. Listening and reflecting back emotions and needs practice at Circle will be a focus as well as reflecting on our shared class agreements and how we seek to be as Friends in and outside of school and how we show our own daily Little Things for social equity activism. Please enjoy the mindfulness recordings:

Continued Exploration of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and his work— links to more inspiring moments with Dr. Tyson: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Want Scientifically Literate Children? Get Out of Their Way. | Big Think Neil deGrasse Tyson Answering Kids’ Big Questions (Compilation) Best of: Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains the Big Bang

Review/ Farm Labor Rights, Migrant Farming: Dolores Huerta Dolores Huerta is a renowned American labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union alongside Cesar Chavez. The Migrant / Seasonal Farmworker

Highlight of local island farms making ecological and societal differences – we would love to invite a farming Specialist to visit class if any referrals come to mind please contact the school.

Ponds and Dry-Water Riverbeds in the Winter to Spring months: exploring the life within and surrounding freshwater habitats in the winter and early spring weeks. We will also work more intricately on the garden beaver dam/winter pond whereas we will work together to line the bottom and side of the pond with rocks as well as plantings surrounding the waterform.

Salamanders, frogs and local amphibians Amphibians Get Amorous – Vashon Nature Center

Exploration of Seaweed – back to the microscope and exploring droplets of water, plants and seaweed.

Spring: Parts of plants and focus on seeds and pollen; what they are and how they work. Introduction to our native pollinators. Creating a Fairy-Chickadee garden for the front entry of the school trail beds. We will create this as a class and welcome bulb donations and starts that are deer resistant.

Three Sisters Planting and Gardening in the PNW – spring bed preparations and seed sorting, planting plans drafted, plans for prunings and grafting. The Three Sisters of Indigenous American Agriculture, How to Grow a Three Sisters Garden – Native-Seeds-Search,

Introduction to the Study of Insects

Cultivate insects….They are the most important visible wildlife in your garden. Value them accordingly. Create sustainable habitats, provide food and never, ever, kill insects indiscriminately. Revere fungi….only a tiny, tiny portion do any harm at all and the vast majority are essential for life in the garden. Soil without fungi is barren. Fungal filaments can reach parts that even the tiniest roots cannot, and fungi form partnerships with all kinds of plants, from mosses to trees, taking elements from deep in the soil so plants can benefit from them and fungi can then feed on the sugars in the plants.

~Down to Earth, Monty Don

The Structure and Importance of Mycelium and Fungi for earth floors & Beatrix Potter’s incredible contribution through her science observations and creative eye.

The Mystery of Mushrooms with Neil deGrasse Tyson & Bryn Dentinger

Fungi are specialized eukaryotes that can break down very complex structures in nature. They have cell walls rich in chitin (the hard material found in the exoskeleton of insects) and utilize asexual reproduction through spore release. These spores have the ability to turn into mycelium. Mycelium can then create fruiting bodies, known as mushrooms. Mycelium comes in many sizes, from very tiny to as large as a forest and made up of rigid cell walls, allowing them to move through soil or other environments that require extra protection. Under a microscope, mycelium can look like little deciduous trees in the winter.

media.bedtime.fm/peace-out_S4E3.mp3 : Fantastic Mindfulness visualization for children and families exploring mycelium.
What is Mushroom Mycelium?
How Mushrooms Grow in the Wild – Lifecycle of Fungus Illustrated – Spores and Mycelium,
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature
Mushrooms, Fossils, And A Pen To Draw Them With: Beatrix Potter, Naturalist

Watersheds and mountains of our region: habitats, needs and contributions their species make to the earth.

Salish Sea explorations: name and areas, ecosystem importance

Chief Sealth and daughter Princess Angeline (Kikisoblu) Kikisoblu, the daughter of Chief Seattle, was a friend to early Seattle pioneers. Duwamish tribal sovereignty

Felting, sewing, weaving continued introduction and practice: using basic sewing and felting techniques to sensory explore textiles we will create some memorable sensory enjoyment pieces.

Washing Laundry, Wood-working introduction, this will go on until the end of the school year

Specialists Kelly Simmons, from Vashon DOVE Project is welcomed back the first Tuesday of each month through June to class Early Education centered Identity exploration with Inclusiveness focuses:

Consent
Gender
Race
Families

Upcoming Fun for April & May:

April Tuesday Teacher Toby Art Visit!

May Spring conferences, times and signup

VHS Community Service Internship Submissions Open (Student Link students welcome) Intention: For the Klahanie School VHS Internship Community Service participation, we will be supporting the sustainable creation of Montessori Antibias school routine, etiquette, flow from a prepared inside and outside classroom environments nurturing experiential sensory learning stations VHS students will help facilitate. Student Interns will be able to learn the Montessori Antibias curriculums and our Montessori-Circle Antibias founded class. Both classes create play (permission-consent) agreements and environment modeling introduction to new students and returning students are the supports as well as supporting young children feeling social emotional trust built in school.

Klahanie School Internship is side by side modeling design for VHS students to learn hands-on Early Education moments and patience responses assisting Klahanie teachers supporting young learners navigate a school session. Interns will be asked to help children transition, work with kindness and empathy moments and language practice to find out how to create lasting play. Interns need a willingness to be patient, adaptable, flexible, relaxed and open to the moments shared in group learning with young early learners (ages 2-6yrs). The work is kindness hands on and readiness for adapting, patience and calm. Laughter loving and openness to encourage and participate in imaginative play and quiet focus moments is a requirement. https://forms.gle/q3ERLkYsn3Bnsp9M6

By looking at the questions the kids are asking, we learn the scope of what needs to be done.

When somebody says, ‘Oh, Buffy, you’re such a warrior for peace’, I stop them and say, ‘No, I’m not really a warrior for peace. What I promote is alternative conflict resolution’.

~Buffy Sainte-Marie

I can not write if I am out of humor.

We find some people make theories out of dried specimens without the least experience of the way things grow.

~Beatrix Potter

February 2025 Reflection

What a wonderfully swift and rich month with your families and children and what transitions to new growth we are honored to witness, even in the lack of days together. Thank you for all the time and care devoted to making the Valentines and sharing them with children and Teachers. Your children have blossomed the classroom into a place of quiet contemplation, swift joyful choice, engaged cleanup and help to others and sincere independence that makes them all giggle. We teachers receive the rare and honored gift to observe the wonder in which they create. Inspiration is an appropriate word to describe the process. And process is the point of focus for us at the beginning of the school year and on. Each child in class offers a unique and expansive process to his/her learning. We teachers are in the environment to help open the windows further and maintain space where the children can learn life skills joyfully.

Our class experienced wonderful opportunities to continue our Inclusion practice. When a friend approaches saying “Can I play with you?” our Klahanie practice response, “Sure, we’ll figure something out. We are playing…..” and the children let the friend join to know what the play or lesson is or say “No thank you, I am having alone time. Maybe later and thanks.” Our Teacher opportunity is to facilitate gentle inclusion reminders-redirections about the words used and walk around helping mediate when needed inside and outside the classroom. Our garden outside time and classroom exploration has developed amazing partnership games, group games and those seeking a bit of quiet time. The flow and balance has been amazing to witness. Our class has entered into a normalized classroom, Montessori name for the time when the class flow is effortless, smooth, kind and quiet focus. Some children who are experiencing Montessori flow for the first time are observed as relaxing into the flow of independence and those accustomed to the sensory feel, model and mentor as they find individualized focus through independant or small group experience. We focus our time on collaboration, inclusion and celebration of similarity and difference.

The beginning process of finding individualized skin tone, hue, tint with self portraits offered such interesting and deep reflections of self, community and seeking of more engaged exchanges within the classrooms inside and outside. Classroom teacher lessons are between teacher and child (two most) and only speaking with intermittent repeats from children while we teachers offer new vocabulary and communication practice. We are now ready for some big fun. This is a meaningful time in class when we all really feel the impression of connection and empowerment. These words have a sensory meaning and the children are so kind to one another as a result. In the garden educators are walking around observing and offering time and language when needed for the developing oral expressions or exchanges. The imaginative play has transitioned to another amazing level of dynamic exercise. Yearly this is the time of year we go through a process when children are sharing more ideas and seeking to be heard from peers-friends. This is the main area we pay closest support to: listening. During the beginning circle we are playing many listening games to exercise this vital skill. We share that listening and being present is just as important as sharing verbal ideas. The main words we focus on are: Listening and Patience.

We lead the children in eye contact games and storytelling listening games. The eye contact game is covering my mouth and using my eyes to communicate an emotion and the children guess. This one is very fun and engaging. I then lead them in a discussion about our bodies, how we carry them, how we interact with other bodies around us. How we show our intentions. The storytelling listening game is used with the Talking Rock (held by the speaker) and we listen for the Facts, Feelings and Values. This shared experience has offered deep levels of empathy and sympathy development for all your children. We are so thankful for the opportunity to explore beside your child and support the growth. We share and hear stories. We begin our circles with Mindfulness practice and welcome our Circles creating listening and empathy practice following morning greetings of songs and movement/dance and gratitude rounds as well as prompts centered in emotional-social, empathy supports. The children welcome one another daily with a kindness that could vibrate the earth in gratitude. We shall maintain these precious reminders and practices. Thank you families for all you do too!