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Guys, it is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s like Christmas in July. I love calendars, planners and everything that goes with them…
Seriously though, there’s nothing I love more than filling out a crisp, fresh, brand new personal planner. I get mine at this time of year and not in January because I’m an academic calendar kind of girl. The reason for this is probably because I’ve been keeping a yearly academic planner since I was in the sixth-grade. I’m not going to do the math for you and tell you how many planners that is, but it is a lot.
The Best Homeschool Wall Calendars
It is always difficult to choose a new personal planner because there are so many beautiful ones out there. My only regret is that I can only choose one per year.
However, there is a calendar-related decision that has not been difficult to make–choosing a homeschool wall calendar.
Choosing my homeschool wall calendars has been a no-brainer. The reason for this is that two of my calendars are reusable, and the third one I like so much, I get the same one every year. That’s right, I use three of them:
- A yearly calendar (32″ x 48″),
- a monthly calendar (38″ x 50″), and
- a weekly calendar (17″ x 12″)
Oh boy, let me tell you about my homeschool wall calendars. Did I mention they are dry-erase calendars? Can you tell I’m really excited about my calendars?
The calendars are not only super handy for keeping track of things, they are great educational tools as well.
Teaching the days of the week and the months of the year
Every day before we begin our homeschool lessons we cross off the day on our calendar. When we have a child who is learning about the calendar we all recite the days of the weeks and the months of the year together.
Once they start to get the hang of it, I will ask one them to recite the days and months on their own. My 6-year-old knows it so well that not only does she know the days of the week and the names of the months with no problems, but I have her announce to everyone the day’s date.
For example, today she said, “Wednesday, July first, two-thousand and twenty.” Yes, we are American so that’s how we say the date.
Teaching about time and planning for the future
I have also found that the calendar helps my children to understand time better, which in turn helps them regulate their emotions.
We go over our weekly calendar and look at what activities or appointments we have for each day so that there are no surprises. When my children feel involved and informed about future plans they tend to handle it better.
Then we look at our monthly calendar and see if there is anything important coming up. This helps the kids get excited about birthdays and holidays. It also gets them thinking about things they might like to do to plan or prepare for upcoming events. This is a great life-skill to have.
My children also enjoy seeing the progress as we mark off days on the yearly calendar. They especially love to see where each family member’s birthday is in respect to the current date.
Passing on my love for time management
This is the third year I have bought one of these calendars from Amazon to use as our yearly calendar. This was the first year that I let my now 6-year-old help me fill it out.
She put appropriate stickers on important dates and I wrote down important plans and information. It was a little difficult for me to relinquish control to a 6-year-old, because if you haven’t noticed, I’m a little type-A about my calendars.
It’s okay though. If I want to pass the mantle of time management on to my children, then I have to let them do it, right? She did a fantastic job. Maybe I’ll even get her her first personal planner before she’s in the sixth-grade.
As a quick aside, my calendars have been more sparse lately than ever before. COVID-19 sure has changed things. I’m looking forward to adding to it as libraries, businesses and other places start opening back up!
That’s it, that’s all I have to say about my calendars. I love them and you should consider using calendars in your homeschool. I’m looking for some big, colorful, reusable stickers for my monthly calendar if anyone has any suggestions!