Calendar time is a daily routine in my classroom. For the next school year, I would like to make this time more interactive for every student. I "GOOGLED" for ideas and of course found some great stuff on Mrs. Meacham's Website. I adapted what I found from her site to fit into my classroom.
Every month, I will staple the 2 sheets pictured below on laminated construction paper. The students will keep their "Busy Beaver" calendar folders in a bucket. The special student of the day will hand out their folders while they are sitting down for calendar time. Another way...to recognize their friends name! The students will also get a sheet of paper with Today is..Yesterday was...Tomorrow will be.../ How many days in school / Daily Fix It that they will fill out during calendar time and take home each day. Picture below, too!
I am calling the folders "Busy Beaver" folders because I am going to have a camping theme in my classroom next school year. I can't wait to show pictures when it is set up!
Amber
The printables for the 2011-2012 school year calendar folders is on my teacher website. They are located under the link Calendar Time. I would love to hear what you think. I take constructive criticism and positive feedback very well. Feel free to help yourself and enjoy the rest of your summer!
I love this. I did a Calendar journal last year and I think I had too much in it. What do you plan to do with the loose leaf with the Today is..etc? Will they store it for the month or take it home each day?
ReplyDeleteThanks - Laura! I am planning on sending home the loose sheet each day. This way the parents can see a little of what we do each day (a lot stays at school) and I am sure some of the kiddos will play school at home with them!
ReplyDeleteI am just wondering...about what they are going to write on. I have older chalk boards that might work.
I love this! A few years ago i collected old sample teacher manuals and detached the hard covers and covered them with paper for the kids to use as a writing surface when they were on the floor. You have so many ideas that make me ready for next year. Thanx
ReplyDeleteLOVE that the monthly sheet includes tally sheet! That is one less paper for mine this year :) Thanks!!!! LOVE the daily sheet, but I am not sure my kids would do well writing those days every single day & it would take them a while to get fast at that. Maybe a fun sheet for one day each week! Thanks so much!!!
ReplyDeleteI love this idea and will use it during calendar time! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for additional calendar folder ideas - what is your "daily fix-it"?
ReplyDeleteHey! My name is also Amber and I, too, am a Kindergarten teacher in Wisconsin (Racine). :) Will you be attending the Cindy Middendorf conference on October 15th in Stevens Point? I highly recommend it...she is A-MAZING!
ReplyDeleteWill your Kinders be seated on the carpet when they do their calendar folders? You might consider using thin binders (they work well as a writing surface).
hi
ReplyDeletei too wonder what the daily fix is?...do they write the date out or in shortened form?...
i have used jmeachams calendar books a couple of years...with great success. If children had trouble writing numbers (after you get past the tracing kind) i used a highlighter and wrote it and they traced that...then a few "kid teachers" would take over that roll for me...if they were good at writing the numbers already.
i have a class set of clipboards (walmart 97 cents each at back to school sale)....my kids use these...
when i did the calendar journals before they were in a folder like jmeacham has...so that was a hard enough surface to accomodate their pressing hard when writing. We did my journal large group and then when they were in math stations that was one of the "extra things" they could do when finished.
it was a lot of work at the beginning...but well worth the effort....the kids loved it and learned a lot about place value (we did that part too)....not sure i would do that part again for everyone...still up in the air about that part.
laura h
Hi there! I am your newest follower! YAY!
ReplyDeleteI teach kindergarten as well and have been toying with the idea of the calendar binders. Some look quite overwhelming, but now that I see just how many of you all do this daily activity has helped me make up my mind. Do you use your SmartBoard for this activity? And, are all of your students working at the same time on this or is it more of a center activity? I was also wondering about the daily fix-it. Thanks for your input!
✿Tanya
Ms. Solano's Kindergarten
I just looked at your calendar pages for this next year and i am so excited about them!! I was just wondering what program you used to build them. I would like to use them but I need August (we start school the 2nd week in August). Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteHi Amber!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for these ideas. I too have use Jessica's calendar binders. In the beginning of the year it is good to have the dotted numbers! When do you switch over to the blank calendars? Also, what is your daily fix-it? Does this tie in with your reading-correcting a sentence?
Thanks again for the downloads!!!
Have a great weekend!
Maryann
brennemm@carlisleschools.org
Thanks "Rockstar" Teachers for your kind words, advice, and questions. I hope I can answer them all.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure what to call my "Daily Fix It" section. At first, I was going to put a daily math problem for the students to complete, because my calendar time is mostly math work. After looking at my schedule I was having a hard time fitting in my "Daily Fix It" so I decided to add it here. Most of my Daily Fix It problems are a sentence that the students need to correct. They need to look for capital letter at the beginning (only), spaces between words, high frequency words spelled correctly, and/or vowel sounds. For example...The greenfrog jumped over teh lag. The students would correctly write it in the box. I will quickly look it over and do it together on the board as a class.
Maryann...if you go to my teacher website and download my calendars you will see that in January is when I start taking away numbers. I believe April and May I just have the first and last number for the month. I am going to see how this works this year. I would like the students to feel confident in writing the numbers before I have them doing it on thier own.
Kelly...how lucky you get to start the second week in August! Where do you teach? I am going to Vegas this next week for the I Teach K conference and I will make August for you when I get back. I just used word with D.J Inkers clip art. I LOOOOOVE D.J Inkers!
Tanya...I will be doing the "Busy Beaver" folders as a whole group during calendar time. Not during centers. I do have a free academic choice time after my themeatic centers, and the students can choose the teacher center. This is where they repeat a lot of what we do as whole group. I DO NOT have a smart board or any other interactive board yet, but I am waiting patiently for one.
Mrs. Unger.. I will not be attending the conference for Cindy Middendorf. I really wanted to go and I cannot make it work! I did hear she was A-mazing! I think I am going to have enough new ideas to bring in my classroom after the I teach K conference in Vegas. My brian is going to want to do it all! I am not going to use binders. Mainly because of the cost. My studnets already bring a 3 ring binder to school for our poem binders.
Billi...what a great idea about old teacher manual covers. Did you cover them up? If so...how? Thanks!
WOW! That is a lot for a Saturday morning. Tomorrow at this time I will be flying to Vegas. Wish me luck!!!
Hello Mrs. Osterman,
DeleteI am trying to view the calendars you have here and am not able to do so. Any chance you could contact me via email? bridge2david@gmail.com
I can't find how to get to your website to look at these :(
ReplyDelete