Klahanie School
June 2026 Newsletter
Only if we understand, can we care.
Only if we care, will we help.
Only if we help, shall all be saved.
~Jane Goodall
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 find whatever happens to be the mutual rhythm in their lives. ~Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Thank you for your support during this week’s conferences, makeup days, and intersession childcare. We appreciate the hard work you put into organizing and preparing your children for school each day. Our time together has been fantastic. The addition of fun lunches and quiet time breaks has provided a wonderful opportunity for us all to deepen our connections and explore new ideas. We truly cherish the time spent learning about your child’s development.
Please listen to Emmy’s voice message below, which introduces upcoming conversations regarding your children’s transitions to new school environments and ways we can remain connected in the future.
Thank you for being part of the Klahanie School community and for your continued dedication to our early learners.
Klahanie School Message for Children/ Families from Emmy:
Script: Message to Share with Children – Klahanie Retirement.m4a
June Curriculum Topics
- LGTBQ+ Pride Month
- Games, Friends, Experiments and Leadership: Klahanie School Kindergarteners will be matched daily with younger multiage friend pods to Show What They Know, Wow How do you do that?! and practice leadership ways to explore creation of shared ideas, games, science experiments and varying lesson moments for them to practice out. This is a large month of celebrations of each elder child’s learning accomplishments at Klahanie School and younger friends benefiting the practice alongside mentoring and mentorship.
- Beginning to form stage design, props, scripts and rehearsal remembering to Play and Improve with each other in the process. “Yes, And.”
- Murals and Throw painting introduction. We use murals to begin 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 the months of May, June and July.
- Daily nature walks and explorations.
- Lushootseed Is Alive Calina Lawrence -Calina Lawrence might be the first person to ever record vocals on a hip hop track in the Lushootseed language – a language that was almost lost. In the 1990s, only 60 fluent speakers of Lushootsed were alive. Lushootseed is a Coast Salish language. It’s the language of the Duwamish and Suquamish people, as well as other nations around the Pacific Northwest. In a 2019 Sound & Vision interview, Lawrence talks to Gabriel Teodros about the power of language: https://www.kexp.org/read/2019/10/16/sound-vision-calina-lawrence-power-language/
- 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
- Mabel Pike: Tlingit Beadworker and Moccasin Artist Handmade Portraits: Mabel Pike, Tlingit Master Artist Mabel Pike Passes Away – Alaska Public Media
- Gyo Fujikawa https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-gyo-fujikawa-drew-freedom-in-childrens-books
- Bryrd Baylor https://www.pima.gov/217/Pima-County-FYI-External-Newsletter?contentId=d7ad3738-8027-460b-b8ea-6bfff7335dc1
- Local Hummingbirds Hummingbirds – Seattle Audubon , Hummingbird Nests 101: Answers to All Your Questions – ABC
- Crows honoring our Mama Crow that visits daily, we will explore the life of American Crows and their incredible facts. 10 Fun Facts About the American Crow | Audubon, American Crow Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Facts about Crows, The Intelligent Crow: Exploring Human-Animal Relationships Cross-Culturally, Did Crows Actually Make These Gifts for the Human Who Feeds Them? | Audubon
- Mason bees with an all bee Mason Bees: Raising Beneficial Pollinators — The Mountaineers, 3 things Mason bees need to flourish, and to give a boost to your garden | The Seattle Times, Blue Orchard Mason Bee (Osmia lignaria)
- Jane Goodall studies continued! Jane Goodall Institute Homepage Jane Goodall Institute
- Phytoplankton Always! 3 Amazing Things About Phytoplankton
- Marine Life Exploration: 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. https://vashonnaturecenter.org/
- Garden Food/ and continued discussions of living in homelessness and food insecurity and how we who live with food and shelter, safe homes can support those in need. How we as a school can be supported for saving and matching school donations to share with Feed Washington in August. Our 2024 school year class collected $75 and the school matched this, totalling $150.00 donated to Feed Washington, https://www.feedwashington.org/ a wonderful program feeding children living in food insecurity of Washington state. We will match this again at the end of our school year, and encourage children in Klahanie School to talk about homes, about families in need and varying ways to support. Our end of the year donation will again be made in August so we have plenty of time to save!
- Transitions and Emotions, Preparation Talks/Journaling for the Ending of our Fantastic School Year & Awareness Practices to New Adventures: supporting all the emotions and responses to changes and how we can stay in the active present moment of now and how to honor our relationships formed and ideas to maintain those connections when changes occur. We also have encouraged children to not compare schools and rather share what their excitements and jitters are. For us to be here for each other. We have broken it down logically, sharing that First Grade and Kindergarten are offered in four schools in Vashon- Klahanie, CES, Carpe Diem and Green School. Accepting changes is the practice together, using techniques how to move with life in practices of calming resiliencies to acceptances and joy about newnesses experienced.
- Healthy Relationship explorations continue: Continued practice of inclusion to new friends in school, 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.
May 2026 Reflection, Reminders Thank You
Thank you parents, families for all you do for your children!
Thank you teachers – teachers aides for all you do and more!
Thank you islands, Pacific Northwest and time to be here in this safe biome with you all to continue welcoming the work of Inclusion, Kindness and Equity through our learning, growing, changing, allying and creating side-by-side meaningful learning moments with your fantastic child.
Community Messaging for our School:
Thank you for sharing the news regarding Klahanie School. Since our founding in 2009, we have remained committed to our foundation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), warmly welcoming families from all economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. While we were honored to receive our Montessori Antibias Early Education accreditation and acceptance by the AMS in autumn 2025, we are unfortunately unable to sustain our operations as an independent school on Vashon Island. As a result, Klahanie School will be closing on August 6th, 2026.
Our primary focus during this transition is to reinforce that our connections remain unchanged and that our teachers remain safe people in your child’s life. We believe that the members of this community serve as a vital protective factor—safe individuals who are always available to find calm moments together, ensuring that everyone feels accepted and cherished.
Thank you for your support.
Klahanie Phrases to share at home and onwards:
We’ll figure it out. ~ You got this. ~ We did it!
Sure you can play with us, we’re playing…
Wow. How did you do that?
May I play with you?
Pardon me.
Can I help you?
Show what you know.
I got it thanks. I need space please.
I respect that.
Klahanie School 