Calendar Time: Teach ALL Your Math Standards

Do you do calendar with your children? I remember when Common Core came out, the decision was made to remove calendar from our schedule because there weren't any calendar standards.  But, the calendar has never been about calendar standards in the first place! Calendar has always been about developing number sense.  The calendar is a tool, just like a pattern block or a ruler. It is something we can use to teach many concepts.  My friend Shari Sloane and I worked together to create an entire yearly curriculum to go along with the calendar. We wrote directions, plans, and standards for each component. Then, we made a calender notebook for each child. The children are actively engaged in applying the standards.  Here are a few slides to show you what we do! ***By the way, we did update the calendar from the original version. If you purchased on tpt, go to your My Purchase section and downloaded the updated version.


Higher order questions are used to guide discussion about each part of the calendar.

This is questions for just a few parts of the calendar. We wrote questions for each part! So..how can you ask all those questions, do all those pages and it not take an hour!?!?!?!  Here’s what we do….

• When we start at the beginning of the year, we are not doing every page.
• Pages are added gradually over the months.
• Each month they become faster at the pages previously introduced so it moves quickly.
• We pick a few parts of the calendar to talk about each day. For example, on Monday we may really focus on the weather graph and how many days we have been in school. Then, on Tuesday we may focus on the calendar grid and the dice roll.
• We don’t try to ask questions about every page, every day.
• On the pages we aren’t asking questions about, we simply record the information and move on.

Like I said, this was one of my very first tpt items. So needless to say, it was in need of a major update. Here’s what we did:

• We updated the look with cuter graphics and frames.
• We also added pages so that we now have the pages for every month.
• We added more song and book suggestions.
• We also added the standards.

What is in the unit?

• Pages for the calendar notebook—calendar grid, hands and tally marks, dice roll, weather graph, days in school, day of the week, temperature, clocks, months, seasons, days, name games for helpers,….
• We also included pages with directions.
• Higher order questions are included for the various parts of the calendar.
• There are suggested activities for each month.

I know that calendar isn’t a common core standard, but that isn’t the point. The calendar is used as a tool to teach tons of number concepts!

One of my good friends, uses our calendar on her smart board (This is the older version! The new version is sooooo much cuter, Thanks Melonheadz!)
But…you can also use the notebook along with your more traditional calendar.
Have a great snow day to all my southern friends!
Kim