What a whirlwind fall we've had! We hope each of you will be able to find a few minutes of cozy, quite time with your little ones this Winter Break to explore highlights from our time together at CMC from November 7th through December 16th.
During this period, we welcomed my son Walden back to CMC (after trying things out at a new Montessori program for a few weeks) alongside four brand new children: Lincoln, Vera, Jasper, and Lawrence. Lincoln, Vera, and Lawrence's families are new to our community; Jasper is Sage's younger brother. In addition, we welcomed a new full-time staff member, Katherine Lawson. Katherine is a long-time Montessorian and CMC board member and will be continuing her journey with CMC as the new Children's House West Assistant alongside Yung Chi! We also said farewell to long-time CMC community member Sir Jones and his family. Please join us in wishing all our new and departing community members all the best!
Without further ado, our activity and progress at CMC these last six weeks:
Week of November 7th
Yazan enjoyed some time in the reading area with Lincoln, tried his hand at Metal Insets for the first time, and took pride in completing the earth puzzle!
Willow's Birthday Walk was a big hit!
Vera and Lincoln both mastered the Pink Tower in their first days in Children's House West and East!
I held a symposium on matching shape cards to one another and the 36 shapes of our Geometry Cabinet (not pictured).
Roshan indulged in his love of shape and pattern recognition with a: quadrilateral-shaped slice of pizza; Pink Tower and Brown Stairs pairing; and extending a "River of Geometry"!
Sir read the completed equation after a round of Golden Beads Division.
Rizwan beamed after drawing and writing "The Whole City of Cleveland."
Kiki and Sagine led the charge through an Anna-organized obstacle course.
James and Avriel collaborated on a marble run while Kyri, Mia, Kiki, and others innovated with our magnetic building set and metal doors.
Avriel mopped up after what looks like a pretty significant spill!
Avriel traced the Sandpaper Letters of Children's House West while Dane helped match the Sandpaper Letters of Children's House East to objects — each object's name starts with an initial sound represented by each Sandpaper Letter.
KK talked with me about Thursday's snack!
Week of November 14th
Our new youngest student, Jasper, followed in Avriel's footsteps in Children's House West and his brother, Sage's, footsteps while outdoors!
KK and Lincoln developed fine-motor strength and specific skills with the help of our zipper dressing frame and screw driver board.
Hannah wrapped her head around some math facts with the help of the Addition Strip Board!
Roshan wrapped his head around the spellings of some common vegetables (and using context to support reading of not-entirely-phonetically-regular words).
Avriel and Roshan practiced making letter shapes in different ways.
Sage and Sir refined their fine-motor control with the use of our Metal Insets!
Sagine mastered the use of tongs with the help of some little grey fluff balls while TJ challenged himself to distinguish between the weight of different wooden rectangles with our Baric Tablets.
Isla took great pride in combining the Brown Stairs and Pink Tower in Children's House West and experimenting with the grade using a marble.
Kiki tried out cloth washing, a tricky multi-step process, to be sure!
Dane looked on as I showed Roshan how to use a new Addition Chart to check his knowledge of math facts. TJ took the same Addition Chart out for an independent spin.
Zane worked to organize and make connections between a set of picture cards.
We had a particularly beautiful salad day buffet and Rainbow Sound Game in Children's House East.
Willow helped prepare Friday's snack in Children's House West by cutting cheese.
Sage worked through several Golden Bead Operations with his friends (not pictured).
Lincoln worked independently to build up the sort of organizational skills needed in work with the Golden Beads.
Please see Part Two of this post for pictures and videos from November 21st through December 16th!