Even though I teach 2nd grade, I still feel that Calendar time is extremely important. Not only is it one of our standards, but this is a LIFE SKILL that everyone needs to know! I have always done a Calendar Time, but last year, as I was reflecting and realized that I was really only ENGAGING the Calendar Helper every day with Calendar activities. Well, if this is something that I'm doing every day, then EVERYONE needs to be involve. After some searching online, I came across Mrs. Meacham's Calendar site. She has a LOT of great resources for Calendar time, including different ways to incorporate Calendar resources for your students. I decided that the best idea for ME and how I manage things was to do a Calendar Folder. I used a lot of Mrs. Meacham's stuff last year, but decided that this year I wanted to change from doing most of the activities in "landscape" orientation to "portrait." I found Cara Carrol's Calendar Companion Pack on TPT, so I have meshed some of her ideas along with my re-interpretations of Mrs. Meacham's files and some of my own ideas and came up with my version of the Calendar Folder for this year. :) Everyone gets one and we complete them all together. The first two weeks of school, I model all of the pages and activities for Calendar Time. Then, the Calendar Helper takes over and has to tell us all the answers to the Calendar Folder pages.
Just a note--we use the Calendar Folders in conjunction with my Calendar Bulletin Boards. I will try to do a separate post on these once I get back into school and take a picture of them. :) Sorry!!
I buy a yellow folder with the brads in the middle. This year, Wal-Mart's folders are a little more "paper-y" (if that makes sense), so I am HOPING that we don't have issues with them falling apart. I put a little jungle themed label that says, "Calendar Folder." Sorry can't share that.
On the inside pocket, I added a 100s sticker chart. We bought them this year with our consumables budget, but I didn't want to put them on the desks for fear that they would peel off. I also did not want my students to become dependent on them.
The first page is a Birthday Graph. I got this idea from Mrs. Meacham. When it is a child's birthday, we glue a little birthday cake on the Birthday graph and add their initials onto the cake. I also put the abbreviations for each month since that is another 2nd grade standard.
The next set of pages has a Tooth Tally Chart for all those little teeth that get lost. I think I am ONLY going to do teeth that are lost at school. I HOPE this doesn't make my little sweeties rip their "loose" teeth out at school. haha! We will mark a tally for each tooth lost on the corresponding month.
Then, I made a "Today is the ___ day of school." This helps us write our ordinal numbers, which is one of our 2nd grade standards in VA. The first 100 numbers are on the front of the page, then 101-180 on the back.
On these pages, you see the back of the ordinal numbers page, then a page that I have created. One of our standards requires students to be able to read a thermometer. MAYBE I am crazy for this one, but it really seems to always be an issue of weakness with my students, so I want to try to find a way to help.
Starting the year, students will write the date using the __/__/__ format, then we will write the temperature on the degrees lines.
Once we start discussing rounding, how we do this page will change. They will still write the dates, but then we will discuss which "ten" the current temperature is closest to and we will write that on the middle thermometer line. Then, we'll write the ten below and the ten above. Lastly, we will color the thermometer to what the temperature needs to be and write the ROUNDED number on the degrees lines. In our 2nd grade standards, they need tell the temperature rounded to the nearest 10 degrees, which I think is almost MORE difficult than just telling the actual temperature.
Next, I am using some of Cara's pages from her pack. This is the daily weather graph and a monthly calendar. We will look at the weather and graph it, then we will fill in the daily calendar.
On the back of the monthly calendar, there is a monthly weather page where we will analyze the weather graph (another 2nd grade standard). Then, the monthly pages start again--temperature, weather graph, calendar, analyze weather graph.
At the end of the Calendar Folder, I have included some of Cara's Math charts for number words, coins, time, and addition/subtraction key words/phrases.
I am currently working on adding some Problem of the Day pages, as well. These problems will come from our new Pearson Math Series. I am trying to put them all into PowerPoint so that I can print them out as "Handouts" that will give my sweeties some lines to solve the problems. I haven't decided WHEN we will do Problem of the Day--Calendar Time, at the beginning of Math, or at the end of Math. Any thoughts? Do you do Problem of the Day? (side note--We do Calendar Time FIRST THING in the morning. We do Math later on in the afternoon. I have found that I will actually do it and keep it routine if I do it first thing in the morning. If I do it during Math, I am more likely to forget about doing it. That's just me.)
Of course, I wouldn't let you read all through this without giving you a Freebie! :) I have put together all of the Calendar pages that I have done--Birthday Graph and Tooth Tally are originally from Mrs. Meacham, then I am adding the ordinal numbers days of school and the temperature pages.
If you want to download MY pages, click {HERE}.
I did NOT include the Birthday Cakes because I did not make them. You can find them on Mrs. Meacham's site, {HERE}. Look for "Birthday Cake Labels," then make sure you check out the rest of the awesome resources she has. :)
Thanks for inspiring me to do something like this. I have a bright group, so just assume they are good to go with all this...and then I ask them to say the months in order and some of them have no clue. I'll be whipping something up next week for sure!
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