Learning Calendar

We are working on the ABC's with Allie, and I decided to also add some number work. I had all of these supplies to make this board for calendar time. There are a few websites that I like to look at and they do something similar with their toddlers. I thought about it and figured that it wouldn't hurt anything, and that Allie would love it.  I started singing the Months of the Year song, and as you can see by the video at the end, she's got them down pretty well and knows them almost all.  She's so eager and so quick to learn. I can't stop now... :)   So.... I made a calendar board. I used a lot of things that the website did- as it was my inspiration, but also tweaked it to make it my own and purposeful for Allie and where she is right now. I used a science fair board that I had at home.  I added a few simple things to make it colorful and purposeful.  Here is the whole board. I'll happily make one for you if you pay me to. :) 

 Top left corner...the Months of the Year song.  I don't remember where I found this, but it is so simple  and so catchy. She loves for me to sing it, and the more I have been singing, the more she sings it with me. :)  It goes to the tune of One little two little three little ind.ians. It has helped her learn the months of the year so quick!

Next is the month of the year (I made the September tag- and all of the other months when I was teaching) and below it, the year tag.

 Allie's memory verse. This goes along with what she is learning at church. She knows it! :) 

It is laminated and I used a dry erase marker, so it is easily changeable.

 The bottom left corner has a space for the season.  The "summer" label is a tag with Velcro that pulls off and will change to fall when it is fall.  The picture is a calendar page of summer. We talk about how summer is warm, and everything is green- the leaves, the grass, etc. How there are pretty flowers.  When it is fall, I have fall pictures that we will put up instead. This will help her to learn her seasons and characteristics of each one. 

 The daily weather tags.  There are spots for each day of the week. The strip below is velcro and has the tags to choose from.  The orange pocket is the left over tags and the season tags.  (Just a place to store them.)  She helps decide what the weather is like each day then we put the tag on the day of the week spot. 

 Simple hundreds chart. We used these all the time at school.  I thought if I can help her get used to it now, it won't be so hard at school.  We color one square each day.  We talk about the number it is. I let her pick what color we color it. It is good fine motor practice as well because she has to color in the tiny box. :) 

 The middle has the large calendar.  This was also a left over from school. It is laminated and was so cheap. it was for a bulletin board...but I am repurposing (my new favorite thing to do!) it....

These are the days of the week tags I made (same time as the months of the year tags). I put them along the side of the calendar.  I also made tags with arrows to point to Yesterday, today and tomorrow.  :) They have velcro as well and we move them each day. 

 I have tons of cut outs. I let her choose what she wanted on the calendar (for the dates). She chose hearts.  We will work on patterns by doing different colors for the dates.  The star will be for important or special things ... like new baby cousin's birthday's. :) 

 The neat thing about this is that it all folds up and can be slipped behind the dresser chest.  I glued a large pocket envelope for the extra things like calendar pictures and months of the year tags we aren't using now but will need later.  :) 

 I also am using this bag to hold her extra hearts (for the date) and the markers and crayons and glue stick we use each day. It also has the pointers I made for us....

 The pointers. (Small dowel rods (also something I had) with foam.ie hearts glued on. ) We point to the day of the week, the date, the month and the year and say them all. We also point to the days of the week and say them... and to the months of the year song when we sing it. :)

 We have been doing this for just these first two days of September so far. It is a quick (takes five to ten minutes) to do each morning after breakfast.  She LOVES this! And all the stuff she is learning!!! OHhhhh!!!! This teacher mamma loves it! :)