Katherine Michiels School

ArtFest 2026 was a tremendous success.

“In the River of Belonging” brought our community together in celebration of 50 years of KMS — filled with music, movement, storytelling, collaboration, and joy.

The Strawberries danced to El Pescador by Isaac et Nora, beautifully sung and played live by our very own Lian and Arody, reminding us what is possible when children, teachers, artists, and families create together.

Thank you to every learner, teacher, family member, and friend who helped bring this river to life.

At KMS, teaching begins with truly knowing children.
Their ideas, rhythms, questions, strengths, sensitivities, sparks, and stories.

This week — and every week — we celebrate educators who meet each learner with deep care, attention, patience, and love. The kind of teaching that sees children fully, and helps them become even more themselves.

Thank you to the teachers who make belonging feel real every single day. ❤️

After School at KMS is in motion. Children lead with curiosity, build with purpose, move with joy, and shape the rhythm of their own learning.

Grateful. Energized. Inspired.

Thank you to every family, child, and educator who showed up for today’s FIT Day.
FIT Day (Facilities Improvement Team Day) is our time to come together—rolling up our sleeves to care for and reimagine the spaces our children learn and grow in. From building and beautifying to collaborating and connecting, today was filled with purpose and shared pride in our school.

This is a community of co-creators, environment as teacher, and care as a collective act.

Missed today? We’d love to have you next time. Join us, bring your hands, your ideas, and your spirit. Email [email protected] to learn more.

Paper, canvas, ink, charcoal, chalk— to list a few.
Materials become invitations. Marks become language. Children move intuitively layering, pressing, dragging, discovering while filling spaces edge to edge with intention and wonder.
Art is not about perfection, but presence, exploration, and the unfolding of ideas in real time.

From soil to story 🌱🥔
Yesterday we harvested 75 potatoes, counted, sorted, and celebrated together.

At KMS, children are not just learning to count they’re counting what they’ve grown.

Real tools. Real thinking. Real Expression. Real learning.

In the workshop, children measure, design, test, and build transforming ideas into three-dimensional realities with their own hands. Hammers, nails, and saws are not just tools to learn to use properly, but languages for thinking, problem-solving, and expression.

At KMS, we trust children as capable and competent. We create the conditions where their ideas can take shape, literally. This is the KMS Way: learning that is active, purposeful, and alive.

Now enrolling for 2026–2027. Come see what children can do.

“We are walking many years with the inspiration of the Reggio Emilia Approach. The School had before they knew me, the vision. It was not titled that approach, but what Katherine had in her mind and how she started the school, are like all of the ideas of the Reggio Emilia Approach.”

– Dr. Naama Zoran, Reggio Children International Representative for Israel and KMS Reggio Mentor since 1996.

Before there was a name for it… there was a way of seeing children.

A way of listening.
A way of trusting.
A way of building school around their ideas.

These images from the 80’s and 90’s remind us that KMS didn’t adopt a philosophy… it recognized itself in one.

For 50 years, this has been our foundation.
Not a trend. Not a program.
A belief in children and the worlds they are capable of creating.

A single question: “Why are jeans blue?” - became an entry point into history, material science, and design.

Students uncovered that denim is dyed with indigo, a pigment widely used in the 19th century because it was affordable, durable, and accessible, a quality ideal for workers during the Gold Rush.
They studied the structure of denim by taking it apart.

They tested indigo through direct experimentation.

They measured, drafted, and constructed with precision.

What followed were not just projects, but evidence of thinking—decisions, revisions, and intentional design.

This is the image of the child we hold at KMS:

competent, intelligent, and capable of engaging with complex ideas. And when school is built around that belief, learning looks different.

Enroll now:
www.kmsofsf.org.