Updates!

So, for everyone who has been following our progress... here is an update. We are loving each and every moment of our time at HTM. We have completed our first 8 weeks and we feel wonderful with the progress and developments of the school. The children have transitioned in beautifully to the new school year and we are off to an amazing start. The fence around the playground will be complete tomorrow and the fall weather has provided us amazing walks, garden visits and beautiful wildlife each day! Thank you to all the families who have attended our parent nights, parent conferences and work days. The children are working and we would invite all to visit the classrooms and see our Montessori communities in action.

A few pictures of the children working!

More to come..

Building the Path

Believe it or not, we built the path! Today, despite the rain and mud, we completed the path to the playground. After a cut tree and mulch were donated, the tree discs were placed along the path by a wonderful group of high school students, from CPA on Friday. Having planned our Outdoor Work Day months ago, who would have known that we would be at records levels for rain at this time of the year. So, despite the forecast we thought we would go ahead and work outdoors today. Two dedicated teachers, April and KaToya arrived with rainboots, gloves and shovels in hand, while a wonderful family the Fornes braved the weather with us! Their two daughters, one from Toddler and one from Primary joined in on the fun digging in the mud and spreading mulch. The day was a great success with the end result being a small group of VERY muddy people and a beautiful path of mulch and tree stepping stones to guide the children of HTM to the playground!

Thank you to everyone who helped today... the path is your hard work complete!

Language and Math Shelves..

Language and Math Shelves to view.....

Shelves, Practical Life and Sensorial

Practical Life and Sensorial Shelves for you to view.....

Set up Begins..

July 2009
The post of the Open House should be after this post... but now, it was time for set up! After working in Montessori for 12 years, finding materials that are affordable and beautiful is very difficult. I have found a company that I LOVE!! I need to tell the Montessori world about Alison's Montessori. Working with Alison's Montessori all summer to preview materials, work through material orders and finally recieve the materials has been great. The customer service is unreal, always speaking to an actual person, which is unheard of in this world. The family owners always welcome feedback and support the buyer in their classroom orders. The Montessori materials are beautiful! Thank you Alison's !!

I look forward to working with you as I grow HTM.

Shelves and More Shelves..

July 16, 2009
Well... the shelves are here.. The truck arrived and WOW! When the accordion door to the Uhaul opened....it was a moment that I will NEVER forget. This moment made everything feel real, and I do not think there was a dry eye in the parking lot. I was amazed. Farrell Eaves and Mike Vaughn spent hours, days and weeks making our beautiful shelves by hand. All the small hands that will use these shelves...Farrell and Mike will never know the impact their work will have on the children of HTM for many years to come. After we unloaded all the shelves, the crews arrived and more work began. Family, friends, faculty and parents of HTM arrived to help out. What a crew! We worked for four straight days and nights to finally deliver the shelves into the classrooms on Saturday. As the shelves were being moved to the classrooms, family and friends, were planting flowers, painting church walls and adding mulch to the grounds. I thank each of my wonderful, special family and friends who have dedicated weekend after weekend to help with HTM. We are almost there... now, the Montessori work begins. Time to "prepare the environment" as Dr. Maria Montessori states. Now, for my true passion.... preparing for the children.

Open House- July 25, 2009

So, I am a little behind on the blog, as many of you can imagine why. We had our first Open House in July, and it was amazing. We had our journey posted on a Journey Wall, by dear family friends, the Mannings. Meg and Matt worked together

to write and post the HTM story. The Open House was an amazing moment for me. After all the work throughout the last 10 months, I was able to share my joy and excitement with family, friends, colleagues and most important the parents of HTM. The Open House could not have been more memorable and wonderful. I want to truly thank the parents of HTM for trusting in me and in believing in my dream. It was a great joy to share this day with everyone, and I was lucky enough to board a plane after Open House to NC to meet my new niece, Lucy!

My First Shelf

Ok. so it is not the official shelving yet, but this is the first shelf put together at HTM! This is the shelf that will be used as our dish "hutch", being the place for our snack and lunch dishes! All I missing are the napkins and tablecloths which are being handmade by my mom!

Looks pretty great! Can't wait to get the rest of the room ready!

Montessori Little Things

Just a few photos of the fun Montessori "little" things that I have been collecting!

My Mom

My Mom... where do I begin .....

I have to thank my mom for all her hard work for HTM! My mom, Karla, is like no other mom, she is a great combo of her mother and father. My grandmother, Sally who we were all very close to was a seamstress for years, making all kinds of things with her sewing talents. Mom, taking after Sally, has made all the curtains for HTM, she is working on the vestments, sewing work rugs, making polishing cloths, tablecloths and napkins. And, taking after her father, Carl, my dear grandfather who was a woodworker, Mom has helped with

ANY project that we have come across from putting together all the chairs, building closet shelves in the office, building storage in the classroom, laying

tile for the flooring and "fixing" any loose screw, bolt or nail! She is amazing. Working every day with my mom over the past few months has been an amazing process. I feel very lucky to have my family's support in HTM, but to have my mom's help and to learn from her each day in all of our projects brings me great joy. I hope someday I can teach Maggie and Jane as much as I my mom has taught me. I have learned so much from my mom as I have grown up, but I also have learned so much over the past few months. I have learned that moms are very special people that no matter how old or "grown" up you are.......your mom will always love you and support you!

The Bathroom Shelving, Mirror and Supply Rack that Mom put together AND the beautiful curtains!!

Thank you Mom for all your help...HTM is a special place because of you!

Tree Trimming, Car Windows & Poison Ivy

As you are all reading in this blog, the process of Holy Trinity Montessori forming has presented me with so many blessings. Blessings that are far beyond my dreams! Well, however, last weekend, July 4th weekend provided me with my first "hard" weekend!! I wish I had taken a picture of what happened, but I did not. Mike and I planned to spend July 3rd at the church cleaning up brush, poison ivy and dead limbs on the trees. The property at Holy Trinity Lutheran is so beautiful, but a large undertaking for any soul. It is 7 acres of beautiful "farmland" that has old, large oak trees. The grounds are so perfect for a Montessori school, however the poison ivy and weeds are not! So, my family packed up for the day, headed to the church to WORK!!! Well, after being at the church for a bit, we realized we needed a few rakes from home. So, I went home grabbed the rakes and quickly returned to the church. I got the girls out of the car, took out the rakes, leaned the rake against the left side of the car and proceeded to close the back hatch of my SUV. WELL, when I closed the back, the rake fell and went THROUGH the back window SHATTERING the window!!!!!! I was covered in glass standing behind my car thinking.....I do not think I could have done that if I tried and WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!!!!

So as Mike and I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up glass and TAPING my window we realized we were not going to get much done! We ended up returning later in the day to finish our work.

After we worked the rest of the day and a couple of other times over the weekend, I broke out in poison ivy on my arm, leg and back!!! My mom ended up getting spots of it also! My mom, Karla, has been an unbelievable help through this whole process! So, the weekend ended with a taped window, poison ivy (with a prescription) and trimmed trees!!!

We are hoping to have more luck this next week !!! The shelves are coming... look for more after Thursday..... all shelves will be here by Thursday!

My Logo

Many of you have seen my logo, which I just added to the blog...but I wanted to make sure that I give Chris Veit the credit he deserves in designing my logo. Chris is a great family friend, who sat down with me to hear my vision for the logo. Here is what Chris had to work with.... "ok..no primary colors, no children hands in a circle and no cheesy preschool "stuff", that's about all... oh and can we have a trillium somewhere in there..." and, Chris said.. " I got it " and designed this. Unreal!

Now, there was a story to the flower which is called a trillium. One evening before the HT church vote, we ( meaning my family) were sitting at my mom and dad's trying to brain storm idea names for the school. We were all over the place with ideas about Montessori, Italy, threes( which is a Montessori thing) ect. Mike was on the internet searching, and said out of nowwhere there is a flower that represents the Trilogy..it is called a trillium. We all thought for a minute and went through some names with the trillium. I somewhat tucked this idea in my head... The next week HTL voted and their ONLY request is that I kept HT somewhere in the name, which I was more than happy to do! So, once we had the name Holy Trinity Montessori it made perfect sense to add the flower in the logo. A few weeks passed and I sat down to research the meaning of the trillium, and a Native American Legend popped up in my goggle search. What I found was amazing..

I can't write the whole legend, so you have to google it and let me know what you think. I was very moved and knew that the trillium would need to be in the logo, so like I said earlier... no this, no that.. and oh my what Chris created is beautiful and perfect! My mom and I came up with the tag words, which again was not hard to do.. it says it all PEACE, KNOWLEDGE, FAITH!! So, between, my fam, Mike, Chris, my mom and a great legend I have a logo that I LOVE!! Thanks all! And Chris you are very talented!! Thank you for vision, patience and hard work. I LOVE IT!!

Road Trip- Vol 2- Atlanta-IKEA

After our great lunch and visit at the Eaves house, we traveled on to Atlanta to IKEA. We arrived about 4:00pm and stayed until the lights went out at 9:00pm. I have to say that Mike, my husband, was such a trooper to not only go to IKEA, but stay 4 hours.... and not even shopping for us! We got everything from pitchers to baskets, small bowls to buckets. IKEA is a great resource for any Montessori Classroom or school! We had a great time filling two and a half carts! I do have to say that I received LOTS of interesting looks pushing two carts! I think people were a bit concerned about how many items we were purchasing! I had to keep saying, "Oh, I am opening a school in the Fall" and then I would get, " I was wondering WHY you had three carts!!" Thanks to Mike for hanging in there with me... and helping me make a lot of little, but big decisions for the classroom!

Road Trip- Vol 1- Signal Mountain

This weekend, Mike and I packed the girls for an overnight with my Mom, Dad and Lollie and set out for a trip to Chattanooga and Atlanta. We left Nashville at about 9:00 on Saturday, and arrived at Signal Mt. around 12:30. The drive was beautiful despite the heat and the traffic was easy, which is rare! Why were we traveling to Signal Mt.? Well, Farrell Eaves, the woodworker and father of my friend, Meg Manning was ready for us to visit his place to see the shelving "in process". I know as I write on this blog, I discover many realities as a type... the reality of my dream coming true, the reality of the work behind me, the work ahead of me and the 27 smiling faces that will begin school on Aug, 17th. But, what I felt when I walked into Mr. Eaves's 4000 sq ft. woodworking shop was beyond words. All I can say is that I was truly brought to tears. My eyes welled up with tears, my heart sank and my mouth dropped open. You cannot imagine this beautiful wood shop nested in this amazing garden/woods on top of Signal Mt.

I felt as though I was entering a retreat center... it was beautiful. The wood shop in itself was amazing, and the work that Mr. Eaves and his dear friend, Mike are completing on these shelves is amazing. The shelving, as seen above, is beyond any drawing or picture I could provide. After we toured the wood shop, Fern, or Mrs. Eaves had prepared a great lunch of sandwiches and coleslaw. Thanks Fern for the yummy lunch! While we were at The Eaves house we heard more about the shelves and what has gone into the process.....

The work that these men have put into these shelves is unbelievable. It is hard to express to all that have helped my true appreciation for these "gifts". As much as I say Thank you to everyone involved in the HTM process, it feels as though I can never show or say how truly grateful I am. I get teary-eyed when I think about all those that are helping me daily and it is overwhelming. Why me is what goes through my head each day? How have I been given such a wonderful gift? I am and will always be grateful to Farrell and Mike, and all the others who have helped with the shelving. Many "little" hands will touch these shelves for years to come, what a gift you have given the children. Thank you always, your dear friend, Kate.

Sinks and Toilets !!

Check out the sinks and toilets!!!

I thought for all of those who were thinking how great can toilets and sinks be... you have to see these pictures! Have you ever seen a sink that small... It is great! You have to see it in person to truly appreciate what creating a "children's house" means.

Thank you to the wonderful gentlemen from the "construction team" who donated their time, energy and dedication to seeing this construction project to the very end! The appreciation that I feel cannot be expressed in words. The joy and independence that the children will experience will last a lifetime..... Thank you to all those who have given so much!! 

The Chairs are in!

Well, here are the pictures of the first large order that came in this last week. The chairs are here!! Thank you to wonderful family friends, Ken and Mary Jo Innis who donated the funds for the chairs. They are beautiful, wood child-size chairs for the Toddler and Primary classroom. My "team" of support have been helping me assemble the chairs this week.  My nieces, Alex and Anna, have become woodworking pros putting together chairs at record speed! (Girls, Grandaddy Seng would be proud!! I know he is in heaven looking down smiling his sweet smile watching all the woodworking projects! He was a woodworker all of his life! ) Watching these small, but wonderful steps develop in the classroom is so exciting. I am so excited and ready to have the wonderful families and children who are enrolled begin the school/program. I feel not only honored to have them, but truly blessed! August is to close... just around the corner!

Memorial Day Weekend....

Memorial Day was spent painting! We painted and painted and painted some more.... Luckily, Mike and I were joined by an amazing crew of support to help with what we all thought would be a small paint job! After the planned 3-4 cans of paint were gone, we soon realized that our small paint job would last long into the weekend. The walls soaked up much more paint then expected!! Our family members; Brett, Laura, Alex, Anna; our friends, Claudia, Jonathan, Meg, Matt and Dennis, a Holy Trinity Church member, made up the wonderful crew of support. Jonathan and Claudia, our dearest friends, "stopped" by to help us cut off the door in the bathroom and stayed ALL day to help paint! Thank you guys and Claud sorry about the paint on your nice pants!! Our neighbors and future HTM parents, Matt and Meg each dedicated a full day of work! Thanks you to each of you... Meg loves to paint the trim and Matt was quite the roller. And, yes to my dear family who have taken on this HTM idea with amazing support, I thank you again and again! And, to Dennis, thank you for all your help! Dennis spent all day helping which was such a gift. Thank you all.. the paint is done!!