Teaching calendar is essential for elementary students to understand the concept of time and how days, months, and years are organized. Below you’ll find some simple tips and ideas for how to teach calendar in your classroom. You may also be interested in learning how to set up a classroom calendar area and how to teach calendar math too! Check out the 10 tips and ideas for how to teach calendar below.
10 Tips and Ideas for How to Teach Calendar
Scoop up the 10 tips and ideas for how to teach calendar in your classroom below.
1. Display a Physical Calendar
Make a full size calendar accessible in your classroom by displaying it in your whole group area. Having this will make it so you can easily point out the different parts of the calendar: days, weeks, and months. When you are teaching these concepts, emphasize that there are seven days of the week and identify their names. Check out this post if you need help with how to set up a classroom calendar area!
2. Create a Daily Routine
Establishing a daily routine for calendar is important. Some popular times to teach calendar is at the beginning of the school day during morning meeting and at the at the beginning of your math block.
3. Introduce the Concept of Time
Teach the concept of time by explaining that time helps us understand when things happen. Specifically, we use a calendar to keep track of what day it is, when special events occur, or when we celebrate birthdays.
4. Discuss Months and Seasons
When talking about the months of the year and their order, tie in the different seasons and how they relate to the months. Be sure to include how seasons change throughout the year. It can be helpful to discuss weather patterns as part of this. All of my classroom decor themes include printables that you can use to teach months and seasons.
5. Teach Days of the Week
Explicitly teach the days of the week, their names, and their order. I recommend including a display on your calendar wall that has the days of the week listed in order. This is also included in all of my classroom decor themes. Another great way to teach days of the week is through a song.
6. Count Days
Model how to count the days on the calendar. Demonstrate how to count the days on the calendar. You can start from a specific date and count forward or backward. It’s fun for students to count how many more days until the weekend, a field trip, or an upcoming holiday.
7. Identify Special Dates
Highlight holidays, student birthdays, or school events on the classroom calendar. Encourage your students to recognize and remember these dates. Related to the tip above, have students count how many days until the special day to build excitement.
8. Utilize Interactive Activities
Invite students to engage in interactive activities related to the calendar. Check out this set of calendar activities! This activity set includes calendar task cards that save you time from having to think of question prompts to ask students, a recording sheet for the task cards so you can use them as an assessment, 3 versions of the monthly calendar activity so you can differentiate to meet your students’ needs, a calendar math activity that can be used over and over again throughout the school year, and a digital and editable version of the activities so you can customize them to fit your needs.
9. Embrace Repetition
Maintaining a routine will give students the regular review and practice they need to internalize calendar concepts and skills. It will help them maintain their knowledge and solidify their understanding.
10. Integrate Math Skills
Calendar time provides a fantastic opportunity to integrate grade level math skills. Check out this post for how to teach calendar math for lots of tips and inspiration.
Get All of Our Math Resources
Check out our grade level math clubs below to learn how you can access all of our math resources, including our calendar resources.
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In closing, we hope you found these tips and ideas for how to teach calendar helpful! If you haven’t already, we recommend checking out these posts too: How to Set Up a Classroom Calendar Area and How to Teach Calendar Math.
