There are a lot of things that I didn’t realize were so complicated until I started teaching them to my children. What sound does “R” make, “errr” or “rrrruh”? What sound does a pig make, “oink” or **weird snorting sound that’s kind of embarrassing even if the only one listening is a baby**? And what about an elephant, what kind of sound is that?
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What day is it?
That’s another question that can be harder than you’d think to answer, and harder still to teach to a toddler. There’s a lot that goes into a day—months, years, dates, days of the week. Which is which again? What order do they go in? And then throw seasons and weather and holidays into the mix and you’ve got quite a confusing problem on your hands wrapped up in that one simple question.
But luckily, some of the most complicated things are actually pretty simple to teach.
Unless you have experience as an ESL teacher, I’m willing to bet you’d be overwhelmed at the idea of teaching someone to speak English. Where do you start? How do you teach them all of the complicated grammatical constructs? And yet, even the fact that you are reading this article means that you probably have a child who can speak English pretty fluently all because of you.
Kids learn so much better through simple repetition and immersion than through even the most well-constructed lesson, logical argument, or detailed lecture.
They don’t learn from a well-crafted explanation, but from encountering something over and over and over again.
Starting your preschool or homeschool day with an overview of the calendar, day after day, is the best way to begin introducing the concept of time passing.
There are plenty of pre-made options out there that you can purchase, but I’m rarely satisfied with pre-made things. I wanted it simple, but colorful. I wanted it to include the right things in the right order. Nothing I could find checked off all of the boxes, so as I usually end up doing, I created something myself.
But now you don’t have to worry about that, you can just snag this free printable version and assemble one for your own family!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- The FREE preschool calendar printable
- Regular computer paper (if you’re laminating them) or heavy duty cardstock (if you’re not)
- A laminator and 3 laminating sheets
- A file folder
- Double sided tape
- Small velcro dots
- 4 small command strips
- A sheet protector (Optional)
- Grab your FREE download and print it out. You can print on regular computer and laminate the two all white pages or print on cardstock and skip the laminating steps.
- Attatch the “Today Is” page to the front of the file folder with double sided tape and the “Months of the Year” page to the inside.
- If you would like to have a pocket for your school schedule, attatch a page protector to the inside of the cover.
- Cut out all of the months, numbers, days, and other colored pieces.
- Carefully arrange all of the pieces on a laminator sheet. There should be plenty of room to fit everything on one sheet. If you line up the pieces as shown, it will be much easier to cut them out, and you won’t have to trim around each piece after cutting them apart. This is definitely the hardest part, but if you do it carefully, it will make the next step much easier.
- I like to put the laminator sheet on top of a book so I can line it up perfectly with the intake on the laminator to make sure the pieces don’t get out of place. You can even use a glue stick to actually stick all of the pieces to the laminator sheet so you don’t have to worry about them moving out of place, because it’s super frustrating when they do.
- Cut apart the laminated pieces.
- Place a sticky velcro dot on each empty box on the “Months of the Year” sheet and the “Today Is” sheet. Use the fuzzier “eye” side for these.
- Attatch a rough “hook” side dot to each of the dots on the “Months of the Year” sheet, adhesive side up.
- This is a great step for littles to help with!
- Stick all of the months, days, numbers, etc in place.
- Attatch velcro to the inside corners to keep the folder closed when it is hanging on the wall.
- Place a small command strip, cut in half, to each of the four back corners of the folder. Stick on the other half of each strip to make sure the placement is correct, then stick it to the wall. This is another great step for your preschooler to help with.
- Have fun learning about time and seasons with your little one!
It really doesn’t take much to teach your children about the calendar. It is incredible how much they soak up at this age. Just have fun completing this calendar each day, and you will be amazed how quickly they start to pick things up! Grab your download now!
