Late February through Early April 2022: Spring Has Sprung!

Wow, what a difference seven weeks can make! To highlight all the change and growth we've seen at CMC, we've organized photos chronologically this time. Watch for the positive differences in connection, engagement, and mood the lifting of the mask mandate, easing of other pandemic precautions, and coming of spring have brought our way this year!

We're happy to be hosting events again at CMC this spring as the pictures of our Spring Equinox Potluck will show. We hope to see many of you at our first Open House and Family Education Night of 2022, The Evening Work Cycle, this Thursday, April 7th, starting at 6:00 PM.

We're also once again welcoming adult observers during our Morning Work Cycle (for between 30 minutes and two hours in the 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM range). Please reach out to Anna or Taylor by email (our first names @CommunityMontessoriColumbus.com) or text with us at 614.212.4702 to schedule your observation. Observations will be especially meaningful in close conjunction with our Spring Family Guide Conferences starting April 25th.

We've just sent a couple of important planning emails to family members of currently attending children. If you are among those family members, please be sure to check your email often and complete linked forms to share your plans.

The Week of February 14th

Our Valentine's Day began with a visit from men with a bucket truck and some very loud chainsaws. We asked the tree service to leave tall stumps while removing our once beloved pine trees—our hope is that they will be carved into beautiful outdoor seating someday soon!

Meanwhile, inside, our children explored the shape of letters, words, vegetables, hearts, cylinders, rods, flowers, and safety pins!

Hannah shakes and matches our Sound Shakers while Carsten and TJ play a game of "Treasure" (writing out the names of objects from a Sound Game using the Large Movable Alphabet).

Roshan, Hannah, Asa, Carver, Rita, and (to some extent) Lou all rock out to the "Chilli Hot Peppers" (or something along those lines).

The Week of February 21st

From top left: Sir matches Color Tablets; Calvin uses the Continent Globe for writing inspiration; Roshan compares the cubes of the Pink Tower and the prisms of the Brown Stairs in the form of a tree-shaped tower; Carver unpacks flowers for arranging while Sir snacks; Yaz keeps a steady hand as he pours from a large pitcher; Asa stacks a rainbow of cylinders while wearing a rainbow tutu (on Tuesday, 2.22.22); Oliver works hard to keep his hands off of Yaz's tree puzzle while offering advice; Lou and Carver enjoy a little chair dancing at lunch; Roshan reconstructs the North America Puzzle Map; Roshan folds his blanket after nap; Rita takes on the Binomial Cube while Wally takes on the Trinomial Cube.

Sir experiments with a funnel made of vinyl fabric while pouring beans.

The Week of February 28th

Mia shows real perseverance and focus—both in this task and the months of observation and practice that prepared her for it—in cutting apples for Friday's snack.

From top left: Lou smiles with a message in a picture texted to Mia while she was out sick, "Mia, spring is coming"; Calvin uses a metal funnel to aid his water pouring; Julian carries a group of delicately strung bells while walking on the line (while trying to avoid making the bells ring); Calvin and Carver prepare celery for salad day; Kiki dusts the Hemispheres Continent Map; Yaz explores our Footwear Classified Picture set; Oliver dusts a set of 30 circular disks, part of the Graded Figures material; Wally stamps the word 'ram'; Lou and Sir look down at a group of blue and green objects from a Sound Game in preparation for a game of "stamping treasure"; the game of "stamping treasure" is complete; Calvin shows off his new-found ability to squish a lot of numbers in a very small space to Asa; Julian and Calvin explore the relationships between the Cylinder Block and Knobless Cylinder materials; Lyanna and Hannah take on Tuesday's snack of graham crackers, yogurt, and fruit; Wally, Mia, Rita, and Roshi (back on the couch) discuss the story of the compost in our room.

Carsten takes a short break between counting The Thousand Chain and cleaning it up. I might be wrong, but I believe this is the first time Carsten successfully counted to 1000 on his own!

Yung plays a game with the children on the way to After Care based off of one of our favorite books about consent, Don't Hug Doug.

We owe an extra special thanks to our families that came out to help us spread mulch across all the muddiest parts of our playground on March 5th!

The Week of March 7th

Jimena helps Julian win a very silly and very minimally competitive race with our "noodle" toys.

From top left: Sir matches the shapes of the Botany Cabinet to their cards; Mia beams over her completed game of "treasure"; Rita focuses on representing a four-digit number with small squares showing 1, 10, 100, and 1000; Rita is almost too well-dressed for a slushy, late-winter day; Hannah takes great pride in dusting our "Winter Solstice Cactus" (thanks for the new name, Maryanne); we all celebrate Oliver's 4th b-day (including by pretending to blow out our electric candles); Roshan shows off a string of beads seemingly designed to coordinate with his sweater; Hannah marvels over a word that can be built with just two sounds, 'ar-t'; Carver shows off one of her many flower arrangements this year; Mia studies the relationships between lower and upper case letters; Asa dusts the Land and Water Forms with diligence; Hannah appreciates the delivery of another just-two-sound word made of Sandpaper Letters to the table where she had completed one of our many "er-th" puzzles; Roshan starts in on the US Puzzle Map; a child-prepared, rainbow salad buffet awaits community gobbling on Thursday morning; Julian practices folding clothes; Wally makes another one of our (recently very popular) word bracelets!

Rita cleans our beloved and much pawed Red Rods with vinegar, water, and a "magic eraser cube-y."

On the 11th, we said goodbye to our Children's House Assistant since October, Jimena. Here she is reading Anna Hibiscus, one of the children's favorite nap-time series, to Lyanna, Mia, and Rita one afternoon. We will miss her contributions to our community and are looking forward to welcoming two new team members later this month and in late May.

The Week of March 14th

Mia, Carsten, and Oliver take full advantage of the reintroduction of sidewalk chalk to our outdoor space on a warmer day after a multi-month cold weather hiatus.

From the top of a busy and beautiful week: Sir arranges Numbers and Counters; Julian gets in some number writing practice; Kiki is delighted by the pale pink and gray flower that somehow found its way from our hallway floor into the band of her ponytail; Kiki waters one of our succulents; Hannah gets in some number practice; Oliver sweeps while Rita punches out a shape with a push pin; everyone enjoys a rare full-sun morning under the still bare oaks; Carsten turns five (and completes his second birthday walk at CMC); Lyanna attempts to count the beads in her rainbow; Sir and Hannah focus on the preparation of Tuesday's yogurt parfait; Roshan checks on the growth of our pouring beans after being wedged between glass and wet paper towels; Oliver watches Asa trace a Sandpaper Letter; Asa watches Oliver trace a Sandpaper Letter; Lyanna scrubs a table; Rita arranges the Graded Figures; Julian works with the Hemispheres Puzzle Map; Rita works with the Africa Puzzle Map; Lou tackles labeling the 26 shapes from the Geometry Cabinet (see video below for more); Sir matches the Geometry Cabinet shapes to their cards and then cleans up; Carver and Julian carry a bucket of water to the playground to make a little mud on a warm day; Carsten and Rita demonstrate the amazing range of our "log toys"; Mia puzzles over New England; Wally delights in demonstrating the functional properties of zip-lock with a handful of old costume jewelry; Asa shows off one of her favorite books after lunch; an anonymous monster (please feel free to claim!); our bean sprouting demonstration appears to have survived at least a first round of transplanting.

Above: Lou labels vegetables! Below: Lou labels the shapes of the Geometry Cabinet with some considerable encouragement from Oliver! (Both works come with a set of control cards with picture and label paired in order to give Lou the tools he needs to find and correct his own errors).

Kiki cuts strips into snippets with the kind of precision that let's me know she's ready to practice cutting "on the line."

Rita labels a set of adorable little objects that all happen to have names with extremely phonetic spellings.

On the 17th, we also read about and low-key celebrated St. Patrick's Day with an appreciation of all things green and. . .

. . . just when we thought the day couldn't get any more lovely, Wally and Carsten discovered that our Birch tree was weeping literal buckets of mild, sweet sap from its recently broken limbs. Most partook in a sap tasting—after overnight collection—on the 18th! It was so much chaotic fun we managed to get just one usable picture, whoops!

The Spring Equinox Potluck (on Sunday, March 20th)

A warm thank you to the many families that made it out to celebrate spring with us (and break bread as a community for the first time in far too long)!

The Week of March 21st

From top left: Oliver matches Number Rods and Cards; Rita mulls over her new reading work; Wally offers encouragement and help to Rita in her reading; Julian records his Golden Bead Addition problem to get in a little number writing practice; TJ writes with the Print Small Movable Alphabet (earth, flower, bowl, cherrio); Calvin and then Julian use the Number Rods and Cards to explore and record different combinations with a sum of 10; Hannah, Carver, and Oliver bask in the glory of matching all the objects of a Sound Game to the Sandpaper Letters representing the first sound in the objects' name; many chip in to snap apart and sort a new Cursive Small Movable Alphabet; Wally takes a break from routine with our team on our Program Development Day by painting new pockets and cards for our Lending Library; the Full Day pick-up crew geek out over a new building material in the hallway; Lou builds his braiding skills; Sir focuses on brushing his inside shoes clean; Roshan practices the knot tying skills needed to make word bracelets; Yaz waters a plant; Sir sorts beads; and Oliver practices a back stitch with our new sewing work.

On Thursday, we pretty easily lured and captured a tame, friendly, and fat rabbit we had seen outdoors throughout the week. A big thanks to Alyssa for her care, knowledge, and donation of supplies. Care and concern for the rabbit have overflowed from our little community. We have made a big effort to find the rabbit's former owners, named him Broccoli, and very temporarily made a home for him at "Wally's house." Please let us know if you have interest in or knowledge regarding finding this rabbit a good home (right now, we are on the wait list at Ohio House Rabbit Rescue).

The Week of March 28th

Oliver and Julian carry an entire case of paper towels from my car into the building!

Rita prunes our potted tree with great zeal!

From top left: TJ practices writing his name on a Metal Inset; Rita and Hannah complete construction of a house with a new building material; Wally and Carsten work on counting to 1000 in a new format; Asa is well bundled for a cold snap (or perhaps this is a misplaced photo from late-winter); Carver, Kiki, and Asa revel in the "mucky mud"; Roshan dons a self-made crown; Mia writes a personal message to Hannah with the aid of the Small Movable Alphabet; Hannah chops tofu to accompany snap peas, green beans, and sesame dressing; Rita and Wally collaborate in the construction of a labeled jungle (with a human ghost on a treasure hunt).

Carsten and Oilver carefully grapple with can opening.

Hannah watches as Julian counts the final category of the sum in their Golden Bead Addition Game!

Last but not least, Kiki packs up the contents of her Work Drawer into her Work Folder after another eventful, busy week. This is a friendly reminder that we welcome Work Folders back to Children's House East and re-stuff on Fridays, as the children are ready. Please send your children back to CMC with empty Work Folders as soon as they have been emptied at home!