Creating an Educational a School Calendar and Printables!

While planning for the up coming school year, I found myself reminiscing about our preschool days. Today I am sharing a simple calendar craft that is educational for the little one. A closely guarded secret that I am happily sharing with our readers. My favorite homemade calendar can be used in any schooling situation.

Below you will find instructions on how to create and personalize your own calendar. Click here to download the basic templates for creating your calendar.

Materials:

1 Poster-board any color

1 roll clear shelf paper

Colored card stock {basic colors white, red, blue, yellow}

Power point stencils or shapes to make your own

Either magnetic (4 rolls x 30″) or velcro tape

Permanent markers

Putting it all together:

On the poster board draw out your calendar using a black permanent marker. Your grid will have six rows and seven columns. The spacing I used was three and a half-inch squares. Your sixth row does not need columns as it is for the year, month, and weather.

To create the labels:

For the days of the week, you can print my template or write them on above the columns using a marker. You can also stencil on the century on the left corner.

Use your card stock to print or stencil out the months, numbers, and shapes. I created the weekday labels, the century, months, shapes, numbers and weather symbols using the power point file which can be downloaded for your use.

I am making this calendar as a gift for two little girls ages two and four, I used the primary colors of red, yellow and blue. For the shapes I used circle, square, and triangle. I included one heart in each color for birthdays and a star in each color for holidays.

Line up:

Red Circle with the numbers 1/4/7/10/13/16/19/22/25/28/31

Blue Triangle with the numbers 2/5/8/11/14/17/20/23/26/29

Yellow Square with the numbers 3/6/9/12/15/18/21/24/27/30

Once you have designed all your pieces, it is time to cut all your pieces apart.

If you printed the days of the week and the century you will now need to glue them into position. Starting with Sunday, glue the week days above the columns.

Glue the year above the week days on the left hand side. Once it is covered with shelf paper you can use a maker to write on the current year.

Allow the glue to dry over night before continuing.

Cover front and back of the poster board with shelf paper. Repeat with all your remaining cutouts.

Cut your magnetic tape into small squares and attach to the center calendar squares and all your cutouts. For your months you can either use four squares or a longer strip of tape. Attach a magnet to the right side of the calendar for the weather.

Your finished calendar can be placed on the refrigerator door, bulletin board, or a wall. Placement should be where you and your child can have easy access everyday.

How to use the calendar:

For children four years and younger, let them repeat after you

As you point to the pieces, say “Today is Wednesday.”

Today’s number is five, “Can you help me count to five, count from one to five”, while pointing to each number

Today’s color is Blue

Today’s shape is Triangle

Today is Wednesday, September 5, 2012

If you included basic shapes depicting the weather, you and your child would look out side to see if it is sunny, cloudy, rainy or snowing. Allow child to choose weather symbol and place it next to the month.

Older children should be able to point to the calendar and tell you the current day of the week, what the number of the day is, the color, the complete date, and count to 31.

As your child masters these skills, remember you can create more shapes in different colors using the same method. You can also ask them to create a number sentence using the number of the day and practice skip counting.

What are you ideas for using this calendar for a growing child? I would love to hear them.