Calendar

"I never tried this today" "Are we there yet?" "Is it tomorrow now?" Small kids have no sense of time. Presenting them with a visual calendars seems to help a lot.

We first started to make our calendars in December. There were simply too many things scheduled for little N. to keep track of: Birthday, Party (try to explain to a 4 yo why these two are not on the same day!), Holidays, School show, etc... So we made a Block calendar. We took a "post-it" block, counted out 31 pages. Then we helped N. to write the numbers on each page, and then we drew pictures that symbolized the event. It was a success. There were no more questions about "when" and "why not now". She also loved being in charge of the calendar, taking a leaf off every morning.

Now we do monthly calendars. With a space for a picture (either to color or to draw, depending on what we feel like). The order of the events and the idea of time are not the only things that kids learn when they make their own calendars. They can practice counting, writing, drawing or coloring; they learn days of the week and months. You can also count how many days are until the special event.

TIP:  For the younger kids, fill in some of the numbers and/or use a yellow highlighter to write the numbers for them to trace.