Preschool Calendar Time | Tips and Tricks From a Preschool Teacher

[@primaryadventuressnow]

I truly appreciate all of your videos and I am in agreement with pretty much everything. However, I just wanted to share that it is my opinion that we are not giving enough credit to the intelligence of many to most 4-5 year olds. I have taught preschool out of my home for 10years, homeschooled mine as well, and now teach in a Montessori to ages 3-6 and can share that all of my current 5yr olds enjoy the calendar and understand the concepts taught fluently. Most it not all of my 4 year olds understand it as well. I think it is a very important topic to highlight the understanding of time passing on a level they do understand-so yesterday today and tomorrow is not just a once and done lesson. We repeat concepts regularly to deepen their understanding. However, the calendar in my opinion is so incredibly useful and important to early mathematics. This is how many of my students rote and back count, what comes before and after with numerals, days, months. These concepts are certainly age appropriate and children who can grasp it will grasp it. If a child isn't developmentally ready to grasp it they won't. But that's why we don't teach to the lowest level in the class. I agree calendar doesn't need to be done daily but in my experience, my 5yr olds love it and track their own in their binders. Our circles include many things aside from calendar as well but do not last longer than their attention spans can handle. I definitely believe we don't give enough credit to how much these littles can understand especially when a teacher or adult speaks on their level and goes over the lesson often. We have 4-5yr olds that understand geography better than many late elementary ages kids. They can learn much more than we think they can. The term developmentally appropriate is used too loosely in my opinion. Teaching to the the child's level of understanding rather than to the idea of what they are capable of understanding by their age is more effective.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

Great topic for a follow-up episode, thanks for watching!

[@charlenesteward195]

Same for my preschoolers! They love learning the calendar and hate when we don't do it. I really have yet to see it as a problem🤷🏽‍♀️.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

@@charlenesteward195 Children crave routine.

[@caroleflegal5303]

I agree! While "doing calendar for calendar's sake or because we 'have to' or because it's 'always been done' " is neither helpful or best practice, the value of having a time to look at and interact with a calendar with intention and mindfulness can be a valuable part. of a child's day. Being intentional and mindful of the WHY is the key! My WHY is rarely about patterns and numeral. recognition, but about supporting a child's growing theory of mind and language. I use several types of calendars in my classroom. For example, a full year, regular wall calendar is a great way to "remember when" and develop a sense of reflection about the passage of time. At the end of our day I often ask, "What do we want to remember about today?" and write it in the box with a little picture that kids can look at any time during any day all year long. Talk about language development around time passage! They begin to make connections then to the grid calendar and the linear calendars (because those calendars "go away" or are taken down, but the events still happened and should be remembered!) AND the calendars on their parent's smart phones! Connections! That's what's important to me. They tell their own stories and reflect on their memories and do all of that because they understand calendars. Anyway...

[@charlenesteward195]

@@caroleflegal5303 That's great! I really don't believe teaching calendar is the worst thing we can teach our kiddos🤷🏽‍♀️.

[@Allellen]

I’m homeschooling my five-year-old and I was about to delve into building a elaborate calendar for us to look at every day. I’m glad to know that it’s not really developmentally appropriate because sometimes my son astounds me with how smart he is but then other times he just doesn’t catch on to things in our kindergarten curriculum and it’s frustrating but maybe my curriculum is just flawed. 😅

[@JAG-yi4qg]

I love the idea of the linear calendar!

[@charlenesteward195]

I wish I knew this when I was a toddler teacher!!😔 Oh the precious time I wasted trying to teach 2&3 yr olds the calendar 🤯. Talk about cognative dissadence. Those poor babies😔. I'm so glad I know better now.😊

[@andread8]

I've recently scaled down my 3s circle time to day, month, number date and feelings. They look forward to the feelings song and sharing. It's much better now, without all of the extra!!🙌

[@MattHalpernEducation]

Vanessa, I LOVE watching/listening to you - the information is fantastic but YOU are so enjoyable which makes it even better!

[@PreKPagesvideos]

Thank you, Matt! Right back atcha my friend!

[@AG-hx6qn]

Thank you so much for this. I have not started my concept of this yet and I'm glad I didn't without researching more about it. :) Very helpful. I love this calendar way better. Makes more sense. I felt bad and thought thr regular one may be more overwhelming for my child. Totally gonna use this method! :D

[@KathyHutto]

Great insights. Thanks!

[@JAG-yi4qg]

I think if not done the right way it can definitely be developmentally inappropriate. It can be presented in different ways for different age groups.

[@cindylawson2978]

Thank you for this! For so many years of teaching, I hated calendar time. What a waste! My last two years in the classroom I switched to a linear calendar after presenting my case to my director. I had to keep a regular calendar in the classroom, but was allowed to do "calendar time" on the linear one.

[@janellemiller1195]

i use a Montessori calendar. I have never used just a calendar like the one you described at the beginning.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

What's a montessori calendar?

[@janellemiller1195]

@@PreKPagesvideos its a type of linear calendar. Its 3 meters long, the entire year is presented horizontally along the wall.each season the months are a different color. Dec,jan,feb, blue march,April, may,green, june,july,aug, yellow, sept,oct,nov,orange the days of the week are also under,that.in the color of the month. A chain of 365 beads in the corsponding colors under the day of the week.the child moves a wooden sun along the calendar.

[@janellemiller1195]

@@PreKPagesvideos this calendar is used daily with kids as young as 3. The calendar is the child's 1st history lesson.we also talk about weather .when the whole year is spead out like this the child moves farther away from the door where the calendar starts at the beginning of the year .they can see time moving forward by how far from the day they now are.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

@@janellemiller1195 sounds cool!

[@sarahshanahan2222]

I am a speech therapist who works in elementary school. I adore your channel. You are absolutely brilliant and I recommend you to all my pk...k... and ale teachers. You are fantastic. I have a question though... do you have a video that talks about introducing letter recognition NOT in alphabet order.. but based on articulation developmentmental norms for children? For example Early developing sounds /b, m, p, t, d/ are what children learn how to say 1st. I get pk teachers who freak out that they are targeting sounds and letters that are not verbally expected yet... but they can't say them yet. I'm constantly asking teachers to accept verbal approximations.. and accept that production errors are okay as long as they realize it's just exposure and recognition (not expecting perfect production yet) I love my teachers... they may not realize I care and admire their job the way they do.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

I have several episodes about how to teach the alphabet without focusing on alphabetical order, in fact I wrote an entire book about it titled Teach Smarter: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood Teachers. However, it does not focus on letter introduction based on developmental norms for articulation. I'm all about verbal approximations and accepting production errors in Pre-K 👍 Thanks for listening/watching and recommending!

[@anamikasharma537]

Great ideas. Thank you.

[@1_viewer]

😅 my own child learned days of a week since Saturday was the only day he was permitted to play an hour of video games. He learned the days of the week quick as a wink. My pre-k class sings the days of the week as a group song. We use sign language to accompany the words.

[@PreKPagesvideos]

Great! I address this at minute 9:00 in the video.

[@godisgood678]

The song memorization will help them in the long run... Even 1st grade

[@ruthantiaobong3502]

Thanks girl!

[@kkpulcher]

Thank you so much Vanessa! The picture schedule is perfect!

[@PreKPagesvideos]

Glad you like it!

[@ceciliagroters1369]

where do i find this calendar?

[@kelleyhoward7228]

Should we still teach the weather during this time?

[@PreKPagesvideos]

You can, but it's really not necessary. I moved my weather observations to later in the day to keep circle time shorter.

[@fayemeyers1702]

I am curious about my age group. 3-4 year olds?

[@PreKPagesvideos]

At the end of this video I let you know exactly what age group I'm referring to, fast forward to 16:03.

[@Cherice420]

I would like to start using a linear calendar but my space is small (in home preschool. I use a spare bedroom) how can start to incorporate it into my program?

[@PreKPagesvideos]

shrink it down on your printer so it fits on a tri-fold science display board

[@Cherice420]

@@PreKPagesvideos great! Thank you!

[@Cherice420]

@@PreKPagesvideos ok I’m a processor, so I want to make sure my thinking is correct. I shrink it done so that all 30/31 days fit straight across the trifold??

[@PreKPagesvideos]

@@Cherice420 yes, exactly. Go to your printer settings and print the pages 2 to a page and they'll print out smaller. If they don't all fit directly across from left to right you may have to shrink them a bit more.

[@Cherice420]

@@PreKPagesvideos awesome! That’s what thought. Thank you!

[@danielleblacketer1872]

DO you use Tools of the MIND?

[@PreKPagesvideos]

No, but I know what it is.

[@kellyhearn8169]

Could you use a linear calendar for teaching 3s and 4s?

[@PreKPagesvideos]

yes, I do.