Calendar Ideas

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It's a Month of Math!

One great way to expand your child’s awareness of time and math is by giving them a personal calendar.  We use two calendars to have fun with learning.  One calendar we like to use is the

Melissa and Doug Calendar.

It can be personalized each month by your children.  It provides a good exercise in counting by placing the magnetized squares in place.  It’s also fun to mark special events and change the months and seasons.

The other calendar we prepare each year is a twelve month calendar from a dollar store.  We go through the calendar and write family members’ names on their birthdays.  Toddlers and preschoolers might enjoy how we did this in earlier years---we cut out small photographs of each person and attached them to the calendar square with double stick tape.  We also mark holidays with themed stickers.  Another fun aspect of this calendar is we use it almost as a diary because daily events are written down for memory keeping.

We’ve found that using calendars specified for a child’s use is a great way to involve a child in planning.  How do you use calendars in your family?

What Time Is It, Mr. Crocodile?

What Time Is It, Mr. Crocodile?,  by Judy Sierra, is a fun book for children learning to tell time.  Mr. Crocodile’s hilarious antics with the monkeys in this book will have you and your child laughing!  On each page, the monkeys ask Mr. Crocodile what time it is.  He tells them in rhyming verse, while the reader can look at the clock and read the time.  We won’t spoil the twist in the story that makes Mr. Crocodile change his schedule.  You and your child can read to find out the change!

Note:  This book could also be used in primary grades to teach editing marks.  Mr. Crocodile’s change of schedule involves editing and revising which could be pointed out to children as they are learning about writing.

Question Collection:

*What do you think is the funniest thing in this book?

*What rhyming words did you hear?

*What’s your favorite time of the day?