Klahanie School July 2025 Newsletter

Klahanie School 2025 Class Definition of Community

We Share.

We Play Together.

We Relax Together.

We Sing Together.

We Collaborate Ideas.

We are Creative Together.

We have Fun and Listen.

We Show What We Know.

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.

~Fred Rogers

I’m proud of me, I’m proud of me.

I love, I love, I love me.

I’m proud of me, I’m proud of me.

I love, I love, I love my heart.

~Klahanie School

We have just a couple more spots in our 2025-2026 Year Round multiage class, thank you for referrals!  We really need a full class for our students and teaching staff to continue thriving and serving children in such high quality ratios.  We also need a full class for our AMS Accreditation completion happening this 2026.  Thank you for your help!

Welcome to our new and returning CES friends to class with us for July and August!

No School Week of June 31- July 4

*Field Trip Reminders:  July 2025 Fieldtrips

Please continue checking your jovial family portal for updated end of the year fees. Welcome to Klahanie School 2024-2025 Year Round School Year! copy.pdf

July Curriculum Topics

• Thank you Teachers!  Our school is basking in the incredible expertise of kindness, playfulness, attention to detail, artistic-group project and curiosity and appreciation of Early Education from our incredible team.  Thank you for your mentorship and community creations!  The school seeks to maintain this programming into the traditional school year with continued creative collaborations. We are so deeply fortunate and our programming thrives with such people enjoying time, offering consistencies, time, attention and kindness with your young students!  Your tuition supports these incredible people! Thank you.
• Grande Rondes’ Tribal Leader, Peacemaker Kathyrn Jones Harrison Kathryn Harrison, influential Oregon tribal leader, dies at 99 – oregonlive.com , Kathryn Harrison (1924-2023) , Oregon Historical Society to honor Kathryn Harrison | Smoke Signals, What’s in a School Rename: Kathryn Jones Harrison Outshines – The Corvallis Advocate, https://www.nativeartsandcultures.org/remembering-kathryn-harrison 

• Meaning and Practice of Resiliency and Nurturing Friendships: Moving through life changes and acceptances of the new is our focus.  How to find acceptances while honoring closings, grief in change and excitements about what is to come.
• Local author Davis Endava  The Raven Calls and undoubtedly inspires many young authors in our group of students and beginning chapter book readers!  Author weaves history, heritage and healing into new book | Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber, 
• Sea Animal Paper Mache Creatures & Marine Life Exploration and Preparations for KVI Field Trip with Vashon Nature Center! Naming of shells and local seaweed and water plant and animal life.  We begin clear conversations about beach awareness and marine life etiquette.  Salish Sea Vashon/Maury beaches, 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. July 2025 Fieldtrips 
• Horses and Preparations for our Field Trip to Townes’ horses! July 2025 Fieldtrips
• Continued Murals and Throw painting introduction.  We use murals to continue forming our class Story boards that will have symbols of our time together in animals and images.  These will be in front of the garage door to appreciate.
  • Please dress kids in clothes you do not care about getting stained, dirty in July.
• Jeremy Dutcher “I hope people feel a sense of celebration – and resilience.” More information on Kehkimin Wolastoqey language immersion school – the first Wolastoqey immersion and land-based school – creating a new generations of fluent Wolastoqey speakers that will help to re-connect to the language and life ways of the Wolastoqiyik, and will empower us to carry the language and ways of life forward for future generations. Kehkimin
• Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu: Kanakka Maoli Teacher and Culture Keeper, Activist Luce Fellow Spotlight: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu | First Nations Development Institute , Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu 
• Local Hummingbirds Hummingbirds – Seattle Audubon , Hummingbird Nests 101: Answers to All Your Questions – ABC 
• Hummingbird magical nest creations and other end of the year sewing, weaving creations.
• Baking a Berry Cake with all the garden berries harvested! Jam/Raspberry sauce to use for the Volcano berry cake!
• Continued Healthy Relationship & Community exploration, we will explore in both classes the practice of Permission/Consent Play Practice and Coaching with friends in class to continue the sensory science learning (what happens in our bodies/brains to our fingertips) and emotions (more about what they are and what they can feel like and look, sound like).
  • We are going to break down moments that feel uncomfortable and find ways to empower ourselves and others around us.  Exploring that no matter what age, we deserve to be heard and seen and respected and we can call for that for ourselves, and for other people-living things (environment, animals).  
  • We will explore age supported, what it means to love and ways we can show that to ourselves and to our families, our friends, our communities.  We honor starting in our backyards for making and sustainably honoring Peace in our world and also supporting when we need specific space.   We will be asking students and teachers and the community to Show What We Know by acting and discussing in homes, classrooms, play moments, what Peace and Peaceful play means to us.  Exploring, what does it mean to you, to me?  And having fun with the richness of exploration in games, songs and puppet pauses diving a little deeper into self care moments as well.  
  • In circle, we have been discussing moments when we feel “topsy-turvy” and do not know what to do with our bodies-choices, when feeling overwhelmed methods we can use to find best matches for ourselves in environments and encourage students to practice Pause and observation, sense-into their environment and choices, before moving to an action or choice.  We are starting to become aware of empowerment in time we feel overwhelmed, actions we can take to ground ourselves to make insight with silence, and a chance to gather our awareness to one focus.  Pause has become a great language focus and role playing practice in the classes, with wonderful impacts we are observing in both the classes.  Square Breathing practice.

August Plannings: 

August 6th: Kindergarten Graduation in Garden, due to limited parking we will keep this just for parents of Kindergarteners w/ invitations coming home the first week of July. 

August 7th: Last Day of School at Dockton Park!

Please help us celebrate our last day of school by: 

• 9:30am Drop off your child at Dockton Park for some play and connecting with classmates and teachers.  Parents are also welcome to stay and play if they prefer.

• 11am parents return for the 2024-2025 Closing Ceremony honoring each child and family’s contribution to such a connected, kind and wonderful school year!
• We will circle up promptly at 11:15am, with the ceremony ending at 11:30am.  Thank you for being on time for the children!  Light Potluck lunch encouraged families to maintain social time to follow.  Teachers will most likely head home or to other jobs following the ceremony.  

We are elated to not have a pie auction this summer to plan and fret over.  Instead we are including a donation letter to share with family, friends and organizations seeking high quality options where to place their possible additional donation fundings.

Thriftway Receipts, please keep them coming!  Vashon Thriftway receipts with Name and phone # on the top of each receipt please! 

We Need a Bake Sale Parent for the 2025-2026 School Year who will facilitate this very important quarterly budget support for your class of children.  Thank you for please contacting Shelly Stumpf this July, our first Bake Sale will be October and we need all on deck.  Thank you!

Dear Klahanie School Community Donor-Supporter,

Since 2009, our intimate multi-age Year Round Montessori Antibias founded Early Education school has expanded to include a thriving summer support for district students, year round Internships and monthly Specialist programming.  As we go through American Montessori Society Accreditation and WA state licensing, our school now includes three classrooms: lower Montessori multi age classroom, upper library/specialist & after school care classroom, and the entire Garden outdoor art-botany/large motor classroom for students 2.5-Kindergarteners, 17 enrolled/ in the summer we are up to 23 students with three-five interns.  Annually we are requested by 55-58% of the Klahanie School community for financial assistance, making our work to include fiscal assistance for those that need us most more important than ever.  We see that maintaining equitable, sustainable and high quality early childhood education is accessible for all who seek it. 

Understanding the value in neuro-research data found, Early Education affords for Social and Emotional developmental benchmark supports, leading to foundation safety and calm for youth towards positive cognitive advancements, we at Klahanie School seek to strengthen our “follow the child” Montessori Antibias year-round pedagogy in the daily side-by-side work with students to maintain accessibility and strengthening program abilities for the health of our community’s youth and families.  While our community/nation/world is facing challenges of consistent socialization opportunities practice for our youth, and feelings of isolation and-or exclusion, we at Klahanie School continue commitment to our daily Inclusion work we offer celebrating difference and similarity, practice of inclusion tools while honoring age centered civic duties to early childhood and intern education. We continue our mission to instill a love of learning and resiliencies necessary for our youth in this ever changing world, we need your help to make our efforts go even further!

You can help us find a solution in our school community. Your support is crucial to our efforts to continue offering a sustainable, equitable inclusion foundation for families.  Quality early childhood education and care is not only important for the development and well-being of children, but also plays a significant role in building a strong and thriving community.  Investing in quality early education child care programs demonstrates a commitment to the well-being and future of the community. It creates a supportive environment for families, fosters community engagement, and helps address social and economic disparities by providing equal opportunities for all children. In conclusion, quality child care is crucial for the holistic development of children and the overall well-being of the community. It not only benefits children and their families but also contributes to the social, educational, and economic fabric of society.  Thank you in advance for your contribution. Your donation will go toward helping many families in our community.

If you are able, we’d love it if you could make a Donation to help us achieve our mission and help our community at large.

Here are the ways you can make a donation to our Annual Klahanie School Summer Giving for Scholarships:

— Send a Donation to KLAHANIE SCHOOL PO Box 2426, Vashon WA 98070 (Cashapp or Venmo Klahanie-School) 

— Become An On-Going Sustainable Donator, please contact the school directly to explore how the sustainable donation will go directly to a child’s monthly tuition. School information found www.klahanieschool.org 

Thank you again!  

Warmly,  

Klahanie School Board and Faculty