Calendar

Can we have ice cream today?  How about pizza?  When are we going swimming?  When can we have ice cream?  Can you buy donuts and ice cream and pizza and lobster today?  Why not?  When is my birthday?  When are we going to the park?  When do I have soccer?  When do we get our allowance?  Moooommmmyyyyy!!!!

I had a kindergarten workbook put out by Twin Sisters IP, LLC.  Somewhere in it was a reproducible monthly calendar.  I reproduced it and had Eli write the name of the month, the year and the days on it.  

Benefits of creating your own calendar:

practice writing skills

learn names of months

numerical order

learning days of week

understanding how a calendar works

(a month might begin on a Wednesday and end on a Thursday) 

developing a greater understanding of time

Until we started this, I heard all the above-mentioned questions daily.  The kids had no idea when things were going to happen.  They had no way of knowing, outside of me telling them, "Soon" or "In two days".  Also, if they asked for something and I had to say no, they wanted to know why and then when it could happen.  It was really frustrating for all of us. 

I downloaded a bunch of fun icons for different activities off of the Microsoft images site.  For instance, Odin wanted to have lobster, but I won't be going shopping for a few days.  I printed out a little picture of a lobster and he pasted it to the day when I'll be going shopping. 

At the end of every day, we check off that day, so they have a better visual of what has passed and can count the days til what's to come. 

We have also determined the number of take-out visits we'll have.  We have one donut, pizza and chinese food day per month.  We have ice cream days set up, too. 

Every Sunday they get their allowance.  Eli has surprised me by figuring out how much money he'll have at the end of the month.  Then, he chose to write down "comic book store" at the end of last month's calendar.  He diligently saved all his money for the month of May for his visit to the comic book store.  He had opportunities to spend it on different things throughout the month, but declined. 

Melissa & Doug have a really cute magnetic calendar available.  I also like this do-it-yourself one.  And for $9 it's pretty cheap. 

The kids have a better sense of when things are going to happen.  Creating this calendar has been really beneficial to the whole family.  The overall flow in the house is calmer, too.  I should have done this a long time ago!

Not only does this serve as a learning tool, but it's a great way to keep records for homeschooling.  Two birds, one stone, right?