Counting on Calendar!

Greetings Peeps! I am so excited to introduce you to one of my friends, Mary. She is the author of Sharing Kindergarten. She is new to blogging but has lots to offer, not to mention some pretty sweet freebies. I love to peek into other teacher's classrooms. Mary has great calendar ideas that I hope you love! Have  a great day! Love and virtual hugs, <>< Crystal

Hi “Kreative in Kinder” Fans. My name is Mary and I am the author of Sharing Kindergarten. I am honored to share a little about my kindergarten room with you today. I hope you will come by, say hi, and follow my blog. J

I love calendar time! It is such a unique and fun way to teach so many lessons, skills, and info. Here is a peek at my HUGE calendar.

I choose to keep it large and not on my Promethean Board because I strongly feel young students need access to all this info throughout the day, they need to manipulate and play using these games, and they need to do it in “real life” not digitally.

 1. I do months of the year, seasons, and the date. Notice the LEFT and RIGHT hands on the calendar pocket chart… a must!

2. We do a pattern for each month using different color number pieces. This month the pattern is ABC. (see top R side of calendar chart.)

3. I also have Dr. Jean’s handshake and cheers in these pockets to            keep them on my mind and in my sight.

4. We do days of the week, then write the date. My kids help to spell out the day of the week. VERY important

5. We go over yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

6. We chart the weather using weather wheel on the bottom left. (The other wheel has the months numbered and color coded by seasons.)

7. We also do a “question of the day” in the top right. This question asks “who has a pillow pet and what kind is it? They love random questions and I love getting to know them better.

8. We write the number of days we have been in school, 103 today! We also add one straw for each day. On the bottom right corner, we practice using tally marks for the number of days in school.

9. We also play a clock game using the clocks on the top Left. We sing , “Tick Tick Tock” and pat our legs to the beat, “What time is on the clock?” I hold up a clock and one kid gets to tell the time. We do it at least three times each day. SO much fun!

9. We sing a Money Song from Touch Math and do a similar game with piggy banks and coins. (those cards are behind the clock in the baggie!)

10. We write and display spelling family, this week it is the –ed family, hence the sled. This picture changes every week.

11. We count to 100 using the fish bowl, adding one fish a day. After 100, we use the fish to put a various number up using tens and ones. The students guess the number of fish in the bowl. Today was “27” shown with two ‘10” fish and seven “one” fish.

12. The top chart is our word of the week, this week it is have. We write one sentence with the word of the week each day. (I put this chart in the writing center for the next week.) My kids have to spell their sight words, sound out other words, and use capital letters and punctuation.

13. We chart everything and anything! This week we are sequencing the story “There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow.” We are also unscrambling arctic sentences.

14. I put a small pile of weekly sight words here (bottom right), just so I remember to review them. We go over them several times a day each day of the week until Friday, then we put those cards in the big pile for sight word games.

We also play several number games that I have written about and linked on my blog for you right now! Please come take a peak and leave a comment. I want to know what fun things you do at calendar time and what your students struggle with the most. Thanks for letting me guest blog. Come by and see me some time! J

Mary Amoson is a teacher, mother, and an educational blogger. She believes that learning should be fun and natural, and is most often playing games with her students as they discover learning. She is so passionate about her dream job in education and her incredible students and families that she wants to share it all with you.  Visit her at http://sharingkindergarten.blogspot.com/ or at her Teachers Pay Teachers site at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mary-Amoson/ where she has more than 10 free activities ready for you to download and enjoy.