Calendar time is on my mind! Here’s what I’m wondering: how do you keep calendar time interesting for your students? I just know y’all have some tricks up your sleeves. Please share!
Smiles,
Diane
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1. Have students lead the calendar activities. 2. Have many students turn over cards, etc. 3. Sing the “Days of the Week”. 4. Chants- for months of the year. 5. Stand up/sit down for every other part of calendar. 6. Guess what day it is. 7. Play music while working on calendar. 8. Different movements-jump-spin-clap for different things on calendar.
Calendar time is always fun. I use it to create patterns and the kids tell us what goes next. They tell me what the date looks like.
My all time favorite is when we sing the Days of the Week Each month we changed the song. September we just clap, October we hoot like owls, November we gobble, December we ho ho like Santa, This month we are making snake hisses. I pretty much let the kids decide what sound we will use each month. Always fun.
Before we do our calendar time we start with our houses….these are house shaped caeds that have their names first middle & last, birthday, phome number, and address. Each student come up one at a time and we work one on one on a portion of their info. After that I put up the helpers and call the calendar helper by either their birthday, phone number, or address. The child comes to the front picks a pointer and they act as teacher. They point to the month and ask the kids what month it is. If it’s where they don’t know it yet the child tells them to look at the first letter and next and bubblegum it to figure it out. They then gdo the months of the year rhyme. Then the child points to the days of the week. I help them pooint to the day it is and they do the bubblegumming again. They then sing the days of the week to the tune of the Adams Family theme song. After that they move the pointer down and asks the class what’s missing, they answer a nunber. The child says count with me. They point to each number and count till they get to the day it is. The child then asks how that number is going to look. If the number is say 23 then they have to figure out 2 is first and then3 is next. The child then draws out a number and asks the students if it’s right and we pretend that he or she is tricking us until we find the right number. Then we say the full date like January, Momday the 21st of the year 2013 but we have to yell the year as loud as we can! Then the child puts their pointer up and give them a big round of applause (start clapping up above our heads and clap around in a circle) then we give them a second round cause they did sooo good!
Darlene — I love love your idea!! I am going to have to start using that idea!!!!! Hope I remember to! We sing the adams family days of the week song and we clap slap and snap our way through it – our calendar girl or boy comes up tells us todays number and what we need for the pattern we have built — then we write down what yesterday today and tomrrow are — it is the days name — you know like you are a girl but your name is Lilly — they are prek so we have to explain a little and hope it sinks in. then we say the date all together and then we count using apointer for the helper to tap at each number. helps me figure out who knows to start at the left in each row too!
Thanks Cheryl for the kind words. We use the same Addams Family Days of the week song.
During your Pet week let the kids be their favorite pet. Its so funny to hear all the barking and meowing going on.
I’m going to try the pointer idea thank you Cheryl for sharing that.
I just love this blog its such a great place to share and pick up new ideas. Thanks Diane.
Instead of looking at an entire month, I look at things weekly. I have Sunday-Saturday posted in a straight line on my bulletin board. Students know that they have 2 days off each week, and the other 5 days they are at school. Mondays-Wednesdays-Fridays are computer lab days. On Tuesdays, we introduce a new letter, and on Thursdays we go to library. At the end of each school day, we move a marker (a picture of an apple) to the next day. When holidays or extra activities come up, we add them to the week.
Using a weekly calendar has helped my students learn the days of the week more quickly than when we used a monthly calendar.
With the 2’s I don’t do a calendar time, so I could use suggestions to keep it short sweet and interesting all at the same time.
We have show and tell during Circle time. Every day one child is the “helper”. He or she gets to take home a basket with a book and toy from our classroom. The next school day they bring the basket back with the book and toy. They also bring a show and tell from home. This way we only have one child a day bring something from home.
The child shows and tells about there item and the the other students get to ask questions about the item. Sometimes we get some great questions such as do you sleep with it or do you play with it outside or do you put it on your head! Hehe
At calendar time, we do a pattern every day. We say the pattern, add the new piece, count how many shapes are in our pattern, then a child gets to write that number on the board (ex. 15 shapes, Billy writes a 15 on the board). The kids love how much they get to participate, and they love to predict what is going to come next in out pattern!
I always have something fun in a container that the children will get to see or touch but only if they are sitting nicely and paying attention. Today , I had water and insta snow. They got to peek in the box, mix it up and then play with the snow before we put it in our discovery table. Because they all wanted to have a chance, they sat very nicely for calendar, weather, songs and pledge!!
I try and make the calander meaning full. I have houses on days you stay home, Sesame Street on the day we go, eye on the day of efy exams etc…
I always try to make it fun by having children participate as much as possible.
I like to have my students pass a stuffed animal around on Mondays and take turns telling the animal one fun thing they did this weekend. Then they know their talking time is over and it’s time to listen!!!
One summer while cleaning my storeroom, I put all my small toys together that could be placed on a pointer (Old McDonald toys, items from coin machines, letters etc.) and at calendar time the calendar person chooses a pointer and uses it to help the class count the numbers. We also add special events on the calendar so we know what is coming up and how many days until it arrives. On the calendar I have special numbers for each month March is my favorite when we place a lamb or a lion on the date and each day count how many of each there was. Patterning is done on some months like February (with silhouettes of presidents). When different number cards are used it keeps them interested.
We keep things interesting by doing things differently every so often. We have even gone outside and checked the weather, etc. The students love it.
We do our calendar time like a TV news broadcast. We have a puppet who is the “anchor” and only comes out at calendar time. He does the introduction, class announcements etc, and then sends it over to a selected student (the weather person) who “reports” on the weather. We also have kids come up and do interviews on things like how many days are left in the month. The current events “reporter” updates us on the month or week’s theme, and sometimes we have an entertainment segment where we sing a song or do a movement activity that relates to the calendar. I also like to include a poem for each month.
We sing lots of songs (love Dr Jean Days of the Week and Months of the Year and Stephen Fite’s Seven Days a Week), use movement and patterns with our calendar and try to play games. We are working on the students saying a complete sentence, so they have to guess the day of the week in a complete sentence. I also like to put a sentence on a white board about the Day, Month and Year and have mistakes in the sentence to have the students fix it for me. We also read a poem to go along with the month. This is a busy but a fine time to start our day!
I think one of the greatest things to do at calendar time, is to do a different language series each month. Each month will have English, plus another language label
For instance, September, everything will be labeled in Spanish as well as English.
October – Italian
November – French
December – Afrikaans
January – German
February – Dutch
March – Mandarin (This one will take some prep time)
April – Portuguese (Kids will get a kick out of the fact that it is so similar to Spanish.)
May – Russian
Students will enjoy calling each day by a different name, and it gets them interested in languages. It also leads well to teach about cultures.
I have each child pick a partner and then tell the class something nice about the partner. It’s a nice way to start the day.
We do special theme projects to tie everything together. It makes these interesting for the students and we can do math, science, etc. at the same time.
We use calendar time to count up to the 100th day of school.
We tie calendar time in with the stories we are reading in language arts. It really works well.
Every morning, I hide a sticker behind one of the numbers of the calendar. The kids love to take turns guessing which number it is behind and they also receive practice on numeral recognition.
I use calendar time to teach patterns.
My class of first graders makes a daily prediction. My classroom has a farm theme this year, so I created a large pig that carries a basket. The items in the basket change daily and are related to the lessons for the day. As students enter the classroom each morning, they write a prediction of what may be in Piggy’s basket that morning. The items in the basket are revealed after the morning calendar, number of the day, and schedule discussion. This is the highlight of our morning calendar time (which we call barnyard).
When the kids get restless, we sing a song called I see Joey jump up and down. Everyone gets to jump but its quick and then they are ready to settle down.
My kids love finger plays so we do them a lot!!
I use a lot of movement and music at circle time.
For our 3rd graders, we don’t have a set “calendar time.” However, we do explore the many different ways of making the date. For example, today is the 28th, so we brainstorm ways of making 28: 4 x 7, one quarter and 3 pennies, double 14, etc.