Since I began teaching kindergarten and first grade in 2002, calendar time has been one of my favorite parts of the day. Classroom calendar activities are the perfect way to start the school day in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade classrooms. (I even used a classroom calendar to teach second grade!) In the 21st Century classroom it may seem like there's not enough time (or space) for a classroom calendar set or songs and activities. BUT, the daily calendar routine is vital to students' growth in math and is a great way to the school day with consistency and predictability.
Calendar for Classrooms in the 21st Century
Classroom Calendar Time Research
Research shows that students need a consistent spiral review of math skills in order to reach fluency and mastery leading to better problem solving strategies. When the basics of math come easier, then more "brain power" can be spent on the application side of things. Standards for the early primary grades are heavy on number sense. Teaching daily calendar lessons gives students consistent spiraled review, practice, and preview of basic numeracy skills IF they are planned with the standards in mind. Some research shows rote calendar activities that do not change over the course of the year to match the developmental learning process of students are less effective than other teaching strategies. BUT, when calendar lessons are planned and implemented with the intent to teach standards (rather than merely following a routine), they can be incredibly effective! My students excel on standardized math tests and easily use their numeracy mastery in application to solve higher-order math problems in large part because of our focus during calendar time. In addition, other standards can be worked into calendar time including science (weather and seasons), social studies (citizenship, holidays, customs), and literacy (morning message).
Classroom Calendar Bulletin Board 2012
Traditional Calendar Time
As a new teacher I took pride in my classroom calendar bulletin board set. I started by buying a cute calendar and all the coordinating numbers and holidays. Very quickly, I began seeing and studying the value of calendar time. With daily math practice my students were learning many basic numeracy skills. They also loved leading the class through the songs and routines. I spent countless hours creating, printing, and laminating everything I needed for a complete classroom calendar bulletin board. At one point I filled an entire wall of my classroom with our daily calendar routine activities. Later in my career, after some years teaching reading intervention (read all about that life-changing experience HERE), I went back to the classroom to teach Kindergarten. The FIRST thing I worked on was my calendar. I could not wait to fire up the CD player, gather my friends on the carpet and revisit a part of teaching I had missed so much. BUT, I was not prepared for the reality of calendar time in the 21st century classroom... my students were not engaged, not entertained, and (worst of all) not learning... I was devastated!
Classroom Calendar Bulletin Board 2019
Calendar for Classrooms in the 21st Century
As a result, I knew my beloved calendar time had to change. I even considered abandoning it all together asking myself, "Is calendar time just a thing of the past?!" In my heart I knew the content was valuable so I decided it was the delivery that was not working. Students today are used to high-impact experiences that involve direct interaction and increased audio AND visual stimulation. Kids love YouTube videos so I began searching for ways to incorporate the thousands of videos online that teachers (just like me) were posting to improve student engagement and learning. I added videos on the Smart Board instead of songs on the CD player and things improved. Then the day came that I needed more wall space to display learning targets and standards goals and I had to take down my precious classroom calendar bulletin board. That's when it hit me... it's time for the classroom calendar to GO DIGITAL! Finally, I found the inspiration I needed to bring old school calendar routines to life using my interactive whiteboard for calendar time!
Interactive Classroom Calendar for Kindergarten
Why an Interactive Calendar for the Classroom?
After switching to a digital classroom calendar student engagement increases exponentially. I am able to create interactive slides for students to come to the Smart Board and manipulate the parts and pieces that we used to move around the calendar bulletin board. But now, students eagerly volunteer to answer questions and take part. On each slide I can hyperlink songs and videos from YouTube and other sites to which I have a subscription for quick clicks and transitions. Incorporating songs and videos in this way provides an opportunity for all students to participate and review vital skills. By going digital with my classroom calendar I open a world of theme and design possibilities. I can change the images and video links to coordinate with months, holidays, seasons, or thematic units. Keeping calendar time fresh gives me leverage in maintaining engagement at times when traditional classroom calendar activities become boring and flat. Above all, the interactive classroom calendar gives me limitless options for my curricular choices. As the year progresses, calendar activities and routines become progressively more challenging as students master standards. We go from sorting shapes by color and size in August to identifying shape attributes such as edges and vertices in December to comparing shapes based on these attributes in March. And that's just a quick geometry example! Since math skills build one on the other, spiral review and increased rigor are vital to any primary math curriculum!
Are you ready to improve YOUR calendar time?
Then I'm here to help!
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In my experience as an interventionist I studied a lot of data and found that snow days can really have a negative impact on the progress of struggling and beginning readers. All too often kids just sit at home on these days in front of the TV or iPad. (Unless they have a mom like me who just made her kids turn off all technology and choose to read, write, or draw for an hour and a half... I'm so mean!)
So, how do we keep those kids from slumping when they return?
One way is to dive right back into a routine and schedule with lots of opportunities to read and write. So, I've gathered some resources here for when you have those odd 2-3 day weeks mixed with wintry weather.
Don't forget to check out my fun snow day freebie, too!
I tried to round up so tried and true as well as some new texts for this list.
Click the titles to link to Amazon and learn more about each book.
Make your first day back to school easy and differentiated with my set of printable leveled readers for beginning readers! THis set includes 3 different leveled readers (Levels A, B, and C) about winter snowmen. Resource bonuses include QR codes that link to online e-readers so that your students can read from home on any device! Be sure to check it out!
When I learned about using an Alphabet CHART instead of flashcards at my last reading interventionist training I thought, "This is SO simple and makes SO much sense! Why didn't I think of this?!?" Of course any mind-blowing thing I learn I have to share... I believe we should ALL share ideas and resources... interventionists and classroom teachers are all on the same team.
Using an Alphabet Chart instead of flashcards for practicing letters fosters lots of pre-reading skills:
Concept of Word vs. Letter
Tricky Sight Word "the"
Left-Right Directionality
Top-Bottom Directionality
1:1 Correspondence
Tracking
Using Picture clues
Text-Wrapping
Can ABC flashcards do ALL THAT?!?
Of course, I couldn't share this awesome tidbit
and leave you empty-handed!
Grab a FREE Alphabet Chart for your students HERE!
One of my most favorite parts of teaching Kindergarten and first grade is Calendar Time. It's a wonderful way to start the day with routine, a good time to review math skills, and go over the day's schedule. As a first grade teacher ten years ago, I prided myself on my calendar bulletin board. It was all-inclusive; covering topics from the days of the week to the changing seasons to classroom jobs and everything in between. It was expansive; filling an entire bulletin board! Above all, it was cute, color-coordinated and trendy. (Of course!) I loved that board and the time my students and I would spend every morning reviewing concepts, sharing, and prepping for the day ahead.
When I returned to the classroom from an intervention position to teach Kindergarten a few years ago I set up the board of all boards! I bought new date cards, learned new songs, created streamlined flip charts, added Velcro to my money chart, and re-bundled my straws for the tens/ones chart. I was determined to make my Calendar Time awesome! I just KNEW my students would LOVE it as much as I did!
BUT, I was SO disappointed!!
My students weren't engaged, weren't singing/playing along, and (worst of all) weren't learning!
I was stumped! What was keeping them from engaging?
In my few short years out of the classroom had Calendar Time become obsolete?!?
Calendar Time in the 21st Century
I knew my techniques, activities, routines were good. I consulted other teachers, read books and articles on the topic and came to only one conclusion...
Calendar Time was the SAME, but my students were DIFFERENT!
They engaged through technology and the lessons I planned that incorporated my SMART Board were quickly becoming their favorites(and my most successful). I knew there had to be a way to
bring my beloved Calendar Time into the 21st Century.
I searched for a program or product that would accomplish what I wanted, but there wasn't much out there. So, I started from scratch and created my first (very primitive) calendar file for the SMART Board. Once I saw how engaged my students were (with the same concepts I was trying to teach using my old-fashioned bulletin board, mind you)... I kicked my creative juices into overdrive, abandoned my bulletin board calendar, and NEVER LOOKED BACK!
I read recently that Calendar Time is a thing of the past and that it is among a list of "Old School" practices that should be stopped... Well, I couldn't disagree more! Since switching to an interactive, SMART Board version I found that my Calendar Time has become even more vital than before! Read all about why calendar is still essential today HERE!
My students learn SO MUCH MORE than the days of the week during Calendar Time now...
They learn calendar basics, weather and season characteristics, celebrate birthdays, and cheer every Friday!
They learn basic math skills and cover standards involving counting, base ten concepts, and graphing!
They learn to use technology to demonstrate what they know and interact with new content!
They work as teams to problem solve, use discussion to explain and communicate, encourage each other through collaboration, and develop leadership skills as they take their turn as calendar leader!
You heard me correctly! I said,"STOP telling readers to sound out words!"
When young children are reading aloud to us and come to a word they don't know or are unsure about we (teachers and parents alike) typically have one of two responses. Until my recent training in Reading Recovery (read about that here), I responded in these ways, too. BUT, I never really thought about what I was actuallycommunicating to my students (and my own children) when I reacted in these two ways.
One knee-jerk reaction is to just tell the child the word with which he or she is having trouble. The other response we have is to tell the reader to, "Sound it out," when they come upon a new or difficultword.
Let's think about these responses together...
What are we conveying to students when we simply tell them the word with which they are having trouble?
Imagine if you were working to try a new recipe and Bobby Flay (or worse, Gordon Ramsay!) was over your shoulder watching your every move. Would you be nervous or self conscious? I would be! Now imagine that every time you stopped to consult the recipe, double check what you had added last, or went to the spice cabinet, Bobby swiftly stepped in and told you exactly what to do. For awhile this might be nice, but what if the next day you needed to make the same dish and Bobby wasn't there?!? Would you remember what to do? Would you have the same questions? More importantly, would you BELIEVE that you could recreate the recipe? Probably not! After all, Bobby is an expert chef and youare just a novice.
Think about how this applies to helping a young child read... When we jump in and give words while children are reading we communicate that we are the "expert over their shoulder," and we don't believe they can figure out the word on their own. We provide a safety net that does NOT help to foster reading growth. From our action children learn that if they stop or even hesitateTHE EXPERT(us - not them) will be there to givethem all the answers... if we continue this pattern, how can we expect students to EVER learn new words or know what they should do when that safety net is gone?!?
Instead of telling a reader the troublesome word immediately we should...
Wait (at least 3-5 seconds) ANDWatch the child...
notice what he or she is trying alone so that you know how to jump in and help.
If the child is hesitant to try the word alone, prompt him or her to TRY something (really anything) such as look at the picture, read past the difficult word then go back, start the sentence again, etc.
BUT DON'T SAY, "Sound it out!"
When we prompt young readers to "sound out words," what are we reallycommunicating to them? We are essentiallysaying, "start at the beginning and say the sound each letter makes in order to solve the word." And when we use this phraserepeatedly we are really saying, "you should do this every time you come to a tough word because it is the only thing that works."
WHOA! Hold the phone!
If what we just said is true, then what about words with more complex letter combinations, silent letters, schwa sounds, affixes, and those dreaded SIGHT WORDS(man I really HATE those)?!?!
Research shows that accomplished 2nd grade readers attack words in over 60 different ways and most of the time they DO NOTstart at the beginning and sound out words letter by letter.
Instead of telling students to sound out words we should...
Prompt children to use their eyes to search the difficult word for clues.
If the child is hesitant to try on his or her own or is unsuccessful, give specificclues within the word that may help such as digraphs, affixes, beginning sounds, words-within-words, etc. NEW! Check out this accompanying YouTube video with teacher/student examples!
As we are helping young readers learn we havetoremember our hope is they will gainskills so that the next time they read and we aren't there to help them, they will have the confidence and skills to solve new and difficult wordsON THEIR OWN!
NOW, the next time you are listening to a young reader take note of your reaction to their struggles... When you are careful with your response what happens? Comment below and let me know - I can't wait to hear about your experiences!
