July 11th through August 12th 2022: One Busy Month and a Day!

Hello again CMC families and friends! As many of you have witnessed firsthand, it's been a very busy end of summer for us at CMC—full of hellos and goodbyes, heatwaves and cool spells. In honor of both the whirlwind and the huge collection of high-quality photos and videos our team has created and shared, I've opted for a more impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness style of presentation this time around. It is my hope that this presentation style will encourage questions and conversation among our whole community. It is also my hope that many of you will opt to share these photos and videos among your family and especially among your children as a jumping off point for conversations about CMC at home!

"Turtle in water" (actually a scarab)

Hand-eye coordination

Phonemic awareness and sound-symbol correspondence

More hand-eye coordination. . .

Modeling

Care of the Environment

Teamwork makes the

dream work. . .

A run through our sprinkler

An abundance of "coconutty" nuts from Brazil! (All our nuts are actually grown in the US; the children have named our Brazil Nuts "coconutty nuts"!)

What happens when two four-year-olds and a five-year-old brain storm character traits collaboratively.

Get ready for a couple of flashbacks in honor of Lou and Carsten's last weeks with us at CMC!

Carsten first joined us in February of 2020 as a not-quite-three-year-old. . .

. . .and Lou joined us later that year, in October, at right around 3.5!

Mia helps Zane hear the first sounds of different object names; Lou helps Wally write about his Knobless Cylinder configuration.

It looks like a very serious mission is underway!

Perhaps a raid on these "top-secret science labs"?

More good modeling: shoe cleaning and letter to first sound matching!

Here come the squares:

I love Spider Man, always have!

Sweet dreams!

Look at all that planning and teamwork!

Even through Julian joined us just nine months ago, he's made tremendous progress. Here he is in his first weeks with us, pouring beans back and forth to steady himself:

Carver and Mia are re-snapping cotton covers to our IKEA chairs.

Eighths!

Two opportunities to refine pincer grasp and build strength and coordination in the hand: one beginner level, one much more advanced.

Check out the strength in that hand!

And the dedication to two dear friends: Kiki and Lyanna!

And the, frankly, overzealous but beautiful use of vinegar!

And the attention to detail!

And the focus on strange new ideas!

And the careful planning of movement!

And the collaborative problem solving!

And the perseverance!

And the pride found in doing difficult math on ones' own, above and below!

And then using that pride to find the confidence to lead!

Stay focused, keep going, breathe, repeat!

And when it's all too much, Saffron Ice Cream! This beautiful and interesting story of cultural differences really captured the children's imaginations this summer.

Rita and Isla help Yung clean a new find for the nap room.

Self sufficiency!

All sixes and sevens

Control those hands:

Same picture above and below, just flipped around and cropped below for readability!

Same work, another day. . .

. . . and another day!

Gotta learn them all!

Mind food!

Plant food!

After and before

This is vocabulary building, three words and children at a time.

This is spacial reasoning, one cube at a time.

A wooden egg, a spoon, a line. . .

Time with a friend,. . .

. . . time to ones' self!

Working with scissors, safety pins. . .

. . . and a wooden egg, spoon, and line.

Another run through our sprinkler.

The Metal Inset Experts!!!

I wish I could remember what I was reading to them.

Another popular after-lunch activity these days: dramatic stretching (this one is seedling to tree to tree struck by lightning).

One day, write Canada a few different ways. . .

. . . on another day, a wooden egg, a spoon, and a line!

Exciting new reading material for Mia to model reading to friends!

Repetition is key!

Lots of counting happened this month, especially for late summer!

Then they did more modeling,

even more counting,

more cutting,

more wooden egg, spoon, and a line.

One afternoon, we organized a special preview of a whole-group, adult-led activity for our friends joining typical kindergarten classes this month: a building-wide Echo Hunt! (Before hitting the hay, Yazan correctly hypothesized the point of greatest echo in the building: facing the doors from the hallway into the Movement Room. Way to go Futransky!)

Here they are sharing what was learned on the Echo Hunt with the whole group a few days later.

Calvin works on reading that tricky fifth digit (the ten thousands place). He first joined us in the early spring of 2021! We will miss Calvin and all our departing community members dearly.

Isla gets some help with our tricky buckle frame.

The seriousness of Lou's lunch time read of The Book with No Pictures.

The silliness of a panorama shot during Lou's last afternoon snack with us (yogurt parfait, graham crackers, and citrusade)

A fabulous new toy from Yung's shopping adventures (in preparing to reopen Children's House West).

Back to the buckles!

A very busy morning. . .

. . .a bee (and good example of Asa's budding confidence in our learning environment these past nine months). . .

. . . a multiplication problem. . .

. . . a spacial reasoning challenge. . .

. . . another guest star reads to the group at lunch!

A culmination of 18 months of an ongoing game of dueling Metal Insets between these two!

We're planning for shape booklet making.

While Yaz riffs, quite successfully, on our plans, nearby.

Many of our kiddos are really wrapping their heads around the science and art of geography!

TJ and Roshan puzzle through a few three-letter words and. . .

. . .there's those shape booklets coming right along!

This month, we say goodbye to a little one whose family has chosen to keep their identity more private in online spaces. As exhibited by Isla's posture in listening to this child's story at CMC on their last day, we will all miss this child's contributions to our community immensely!

And here come Isla and Jiraiya racing on our plasma cars!

One thing that won't change at CMC with the change from our Summer to School Year Sessions is all the fun we have outdoors! I'm hopeful our new families will be able to use these last videos as a guide to navigating conversations with their children about their time outside.

While our little trampoline has moved on to greener pastures, our small wading pool and sprinkler may yet see some more use on very hot days in the month ahead!

We also plan to get a lot more use out of our cup and ball sets and large spinning saucer.

Please help your children enjoy our time outdoors to the fullest with weather appropriate clothing and gear each day!

We are looking forward to sharing photos and videos again as soon as our many new community members arrive and settle into our School Year Session routine!