So these little diddy has been a work in progress. I dabbled with it over the past year teaching first grade, but I didn’t feel confident releasing it until I had spent a whole year in first grade so I could truly get a feel of the scope and sequence of first grade math skills.
This summer, I sat down and polished it off. I think I sat on my duff for a solid week while I got it done. But I am SO incredibly happy with the results.
Let me give you a glimpse into what our morning calendar routine looks like in September:
We start out with our monthly calendar song that I wrote a few years back. The kids love them, and they learn how to spell the months of the year. It’s a great way to start calendar!
Next we move on to calendar skills. I do this with the children with my Interactive Projector, using my Promethean flipchart. I really would like to offer this calendar flipchart to you all, but I need to figure out a way I can secure graphics. If and when I can figure that out, I will offer it to you all once the year is completed.
Next we check the weather and add it to our weather trackers. This is one of the core skills in our first grade math curriculum.
When the month is over, we will analyze the data and record which temperature was the highest and lowest.
Next we document the type of weather we are having. This recording sheet will change throughout the year. Next month we will use tally marks to record the data.
The children have a pencil pocket at the front of their calendar binders that hold a pencil, a dry erase marker, and a small eraser (just fleece squares). We call these our calendar tools. They know when they come to the carpet, they take these three things out right away.
The first part of our calendar starts out using the pencil, and then they switch to their dry erase marker. I added this option to the calendar binders, because I wanted another option that would use less paper. There are two other options included in the calendar journal.
The all in one journal page:
To use this page, I copied enough for each day that we were in school for that month. The children would fill in one page per day. I have also used a page protector with these pages.
And the single skill pages. In the past I have copied these on construction paper or cardstock. You would fill in one section each day, and could choose the skills that you want to focus on for the month. You could also use these pages for additional skill practice.
This time, I am using multiple page protectors and have just enlarged the skills that are focused on each month. We do the pages together, and the children just “erase their board” and go to the next page. This makes it easier to skip some skills if time is short.
After we have completed the skills with our dry erase markers, we “switch tools” and go back to our pencils. We add a number to our 120s chart and a dot to our ten frames.
And that’s it! If there is a birthday, we add it to our birthday graph. Throughout the calendar, we are singing the days of the week, months of the year, and counting and chanting numbers. Each month, I will add additional skills to the calendar. Right now, it takes us about 15 minutes to get through everything, and the children are LOVING it!
Here is the sequence of the skills in the calendar:
*Note: I have also included these pages are programmable pages – you can’t edit the skills for each page, but you can edit the month. So if you feel like your children need a little extra practice with the skills covered in January, you can just type in February on the January page.
As a little bonus, I’ve also included all of my original month songs!
Please let me know if you have any questions – I would be more than happy to answer them for you!
You can find the whole unit {here}
If you are a Kindergarten teacher, I also have a Kindergarten calendar journal:
I have written many blog posts about using the calendar journal in Kindergarten. Just click on calendar on the right side of my blog!
