Building Skills: Our Calendar Time
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- 27 Comments
I have been asked how we do our calendar and what skills we cover. It is a VERY quick part of our day. I decided to video tape today’s session… It takes a total of 5-6 minutes each morning. It did not occur to me to tape it until we had already started, so you missed about the first minute of the lesson(sorry, in my next life I will be better.)
Here is how it works. My “Leader of the Day” leads the class with the calendar activities. His/Her calendar is displayed under the document camera (iPad) so the whole class can follow along.
DISCLAIMER: I am hyper-aware of my voice and the language I used during this filming. I noticed that I say, “Good job!” WAY! TOO! MUCH!
I need to work on this and I would love your suggestions.
You will notice also that this is a real interactive time of our day. Although you can’t hear them all, I promise you, they are all active in the process. They are completing their page at the same time. I am moving this whole time. I am weaving my way between students and supporting students along the way.
There are a variety of skills we cover.
Here are just a few of the page options we are using this month.
Calendar at the beginning of the year
Calendar towards the end of the year
As the year continues, we kick the skills up a notch.
You can find these units HERE.
Have a wonderful weekend!
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Deedee Wills
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
Hi, I'm DeedeE.
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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27 Responses
Oh my goodness…"I think it's my feet." Exactly why I LOVE teaching kinders! Thank you for sharing! I love how you have a student leader showing everyone – I'm going to start that on Monday!!
We have been doing this since January and we LOVE it as our morning work! I would love to see how you do the calendar part. I still do calendar time after lunch in addition to this because I don't feel like it is quite enough time. I like the idea of a student leader, maybe I will use that method next school year.
We absolutely love "Building Skills". I saved these to the SMARTboard and the student leader comes up and leads the lesson.
This is great! I'm sure the kiddos love using the overhead projector; mine sure do. I have a couple of questions though–how do you handle it when you have a student that can't do this? Also, if the leader makes a mistake, do the other kids call out the right answer or what? I want to do this next year.
Thanks!
If I have a student that might struggle, I stay close to them while they lead us. If he/she makes a mistake, the others do help with the answer and we give him/her an "it's cool." That seems to keep the apprehension to a minimum. 🙂
I just love hearing your voice in this video…it's like getting to visit your classroom. It also makes me miss getting to visit with you in Las Vegas. What a great routine! I think I need to have my class leader do the same thing. Thanks for letting us peek into your classroom.
Terri Izatt
KinderKapers
Deedee, thank you for posting this! I own a ton of your products including your writing and math curriculum, you poetry units, and most of your centers, to just name a few. I often wonder what it looks like in your classroom. If you have time I'd love to see videos of other parts of your day using your products and even guided reading in the future!
Thank you!
It is so tricky filming my class because I don't want their faces in the pictures. I do have signed releases, but I just do not feel comfortable doing it on my blog. EEK!
Can you share a little about how you do calendar time?
I haven't purchased the bundle yet because I wanted to know how many lessons are in it. Would it be enough for the whole year? Also, do you start right away in the school year with these?
Yes, the bundle has enough for the whole year. I started right away. We had 2 weeks in August… so I just had one copy for August and my students came up and helped on my copy under the document camera for the first 10 days. I built anticipation telling them that THEY were going to get their OWN copy on the first. So they needed to pay attention and be READY for it. Oh my! They were focused. You know what the first few days of school are like. It is like herding cats, so I didn't want to get frustrated with trying to implement their own book during the first few days of school.
You are too cute and so are your students! Your Facebook posts have intrigued me as of this week and I have been a faithful follower this week. This little video made me giddy with joy realizing again why I love teaching Kinder. Their funny statements, their love of learning, their leadership skills…etc. So great! I definitely gained ideas from your video: the callback “class, class”, the secret number, and even building anticipation and ownership by having them first use your copy and then later getting their own. I will definitely apply these tricks this year! 🙂
Thank you for sharing! This is an awesome idea. Helps so much to see it in action.
I love following you and learn so much! Do you staple these together by week or the month? Do they come apart or do the staples hold it together pretty well? Thanks for info! When the packet is finished do you send them home with students?
Hi there! YES! I staple a month in advance (roughly 20 instructional days at a time.) Sometimes the covers came off, but I used a super-duty stapler and that seemed to handle them pretty well. When they were done, they went home with the students. They LOVED them
Do you staple pages together into a packet for each week or month? Do pages stay stapled together well? Thanks!
Sorry! I did not mean to post this twice! You are welcome to delete this post.
I purchased this product in the middle of the 2016-17 school year. WHERE HAS IT BEEN ALL MY LIFE?? I love how each day touches on a little bit of everything, and can be a “review” or an “introduction” depending on the students’ level/time of year. BEST TPT PURCHASE EVER.
Thank you, friend!!!!!
What about the students who cannot write, yet? Do they get frustrated?
Since we start this at the beginning of the year and it grows over time, this has not been an issue. These activities are pretty supportive. 🙂
I loved watching and hearing you and the kids with this highly interactive calendar time. My concern is the fact that you have to print one for every child everyday. I would love to do this next year but trying to find a solution to high printing and paper cost. Thoughts?
Thanks
We are actually working on the idea of making an electronic version! Students could use it on an ipad!
I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to ask an alphabet question. How do you teach/introduce the alphabet? A letter a week or do you teach them more rapidly? What order do you teach them? I’ve been checking out your Make it Neat Handwriting and you said you you begin all students on A. Is this after you’ve introduced all 26 letters?
Thank you so much for sharing so much of your classroom with us and letting us pick your brain!!
Susan
No problem!
Here is a blog post that might help you!
Introducing the Alphabet
Hi Deedee,
I just downloaded the whole packet and am so excited about using it the program this year. I am putting these in a 1″ binder and wanted to ask if you could please send me or offer a cover for the year to slide in as an insert in the binder? Basically what you have on the title pages, that would gives me a place that I can personalize it with the student’s name and even a place for the year.
Thanks so much for the consideration and all of your hard work –
I’m so glad you like them. I’m not able to do special requests right now because my schedule is jam packed. I’m so sorry. It always pains me to say no… WAH