Calendar Notebooks

Each year after Christmas I begin using "Calendar Notebooks" with the children.  We do this after our regular calendar routine to practice writing numbers, letters and our math skills.  Each child brings a 3-ring binder and zipper pouch to school and I place their items inside.  Every year the children get so excited about having something so "grown up" all to themselves.  This year, after explaining calendar notebooks to his mother, one little boy told her he was so excited his "head was going to explode!"  I love seeing the children enthusiastic and happy about learning!
 Thank you to Jessica Meacham at www.jmeacham.com for sharing this idea!

We begin each day with the date.

We practice writing the "code date."  The kids actually understand this concept and love "cracking the code."

We write the day of the week.

We write how many days we've been in school.

We graph the weather.

The next pages are in page protectors because we use them everyday and do not change them out like the other pages.  First we have a number grid and we practice counting by 5's and 10's.  Once the children learn 5's, we will start counting by 2's also.

Next we have our "Money Poems."  The children learn a poem for each coin.  This helps when we cover coins in math.  If they forget how much a coin is worth, I remind them to say their poem.  The children also track the words with their finger.  They get excited to see many of our sight words in the poem.

The last page in our calendar notebook is the days of the week.  We just practice reading/saying them in order.

In the pocket of our calendar binder we keep our "Math Journal."  Each day we complete a page and review/practice a particular math skill.  The math journals are changed out each month with the calendar pages.  Thanks to www.kinderlearninggarden.com for the monthly math journals.