Welcome back, friends and families! We've had another whirlwind fall at CMC. I'm happy to share the weather has been overall great, our children have been overall productive, and we've continued to make improvements to our program! During a period of calm in terms of enrollment across both Children's Houses, we have focused on building staff capacity and finding the best fit in our community for each child and adult.
Please be on the lookout in the weeks and months ahead for opportunities to get to know our three newest team members: Lauren; Sarah Jane; and Lian!
This post covers our time together at CMC from October 9th up through Thanksgiving. Be on the lookout for the deepening of understanding and building of specific skills over what has been the better part of fall. There are some great before and after shots as well as "ah ha!" moments below! As always, we're hopeful that sharing these photos and videos will open up opportunities to build relationships and connections between what we do at CMC each day and your homes. Yung and I — as your Montessori Guides in Children's House West and East — are particularly excited to share more about what you find your children engaging with in these photos and how you can best support at home!
Practical Life
The activities of Practical Life are so much more than keeping our hands busy with good work; the activities below are often where young children find the best ways to care — for themselves, their friends, their community, and their learning environments (keeping their little hearts quite busy, as well)! To highlight these different modes of care, I've separated our Practical Life activity into different areas of focus: food; art; play and work outdoors; and all the care our children take in preparing and cleaning themselves and their Children's Houses each day.
Food:
Art:
Outdoor Play and Work:
So Much More Practical Life:
Here — in a picture of Avriel's favorite sleeping position in the nap room — is a loving reminder of the care we can all take and help our children take in finding the rest we need during this busy time of the year:
Sensorial
The (fairly esoterically named) Sensorial opportunities in Montessori Children's Houses offer so much more than lessons in shapes and colors. They help our children sort and categorize all their sense perceptions, laying a strong foundation for observation and an expansive worldview! Observe how our work with Sensorial materials has unfolded this fall to help our children better understand the world around them:
Happy 6th Birthday Syd! We are so lucky to have you as a role model and leader in our community!
Language
The development of language in young children requires so much more than singing a few nursery rhymes (including the ABCs) or completing a few (hundred) worksheets! That is why we strive to develop a strong foundation of spoken communication skills within each child at CMC before and alongside their first exploratory steps into the wide world of written communication. It's been a season of big changes around how we communicate both care and belonging at CMC. I'm looking forward to sharing new community commitments around communication with many of you in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, I hope your heart swells with as much pride as mine does at all the success our children find in expressing themselves!
Math
Good, strong mathematical thinking is so much more than reciting a song that starts 1,2,3 or memorizing math facts or even a complex equation pattern (although these are all certainly essentials in developing mathematical fluency)! Math holds the keys to measuring, evaluating, comparing, and, ultimately, rational and sound decision-making. The Montessori math sequence aims to support a cohesive understanding of how the use of numbers can support our thinking. Look out for the manipulation of components and problem-solving opportunities our math materials afford:
2023 CMC Trunk or Treat
A Trunk or Treat wasn't what I imagined as "the event of the season" when I started dreaming up CMC back in the fall of 2018. My failure of imagination has luckily not deterred three years of CMC families from making an absolute ball out of our weird little parking lot party. Check out all the commitments to good costumes and even better setups at each vehicle this year! I can't wait to see what many of you will contribute next October!
As always, we're looking forward to sharing more around these photos and videos in the month ahead, and I'm looking forward to sharing another batch in the new year!