Classroom Calendar

So here's my calendar in all its glory:

(You can tell I took this picture a couple of days ago!)

Calendar just might be my FAVORITE part of the day! There are so many things you can incorporate into calendar time - the usual patterns, counting to 180, etc. But do you incorporate even & odd numbers? Place value? Music? I loooove calendar time. Maybe I love it most of all b/c it's predicatble for the kiddos, it's an easy way to start the day and get into the routine, and you never really have to prepare for it!

Last year at our school there was a big push in K-1 to cut down on calendar time. Our block went from 30 minutes (which included songs, poem of the week in my class, some movement/dancing to get ready for the day, etc.) to 10 minutes. I was pretty bummed, I mean calendar was so fun! Cut it by two-thirds?

This year, when setting up my calendar, I took a much more minimal approach. I decided to start with the bare minimum and see what I had time for, and then add more stuff in if we were having extra time each day. I guess I kind of set it up backwards and upside-down, but now I know to think about this for next year. We start each day with the actual calendar grid. We talk about the month, day of the week, and date. We discuss the pattern and where I should stick the number onto the calendar. Then we put a straw in the pace value pocket chart for the number of days we have been in school. Lastly we go through that $1 Spot pocket chart and fill in the information to match the calendar and the number of days of school. I LOVE that I color-coded that thing, it makes it so much easier for my friends to understand where the numbers come from when we write the date shorthand (like 10-16-11).

I think in the 2nd quarter I want to add tally marks for the days of school. I have always done this in the past. I know they didn't fully understand the tallies last year in kinder, but I was at least giving them the foundation and exposing them to math concepts. Will firsties understand tallies if we do it every day?

What does your calendar board/block look like?