Check out some new calendar ideas and calendar routines for a Kindergarten classroom. A strong calendar routine can be an enormously educational and interactive time in your classroom with your students. Perhaps you are here to get some tips and tricks to make your calendar in kindergarten routine more fun and engaging in your classroom or maybe for some inspiration for new ideas. I hope you are ready to grab some tips and tricks to make your calendar time better than ever
When is Calendar Time?
Calendar time happens to be my favorite time of the day because I get so much done and my class has so much fun each and every day. This is a time the students and I love. My students love it so much that they begged me to do calendars from home when we went into digital learning. Of course, I had to make that happen.
We have calendar time during our skills block each day. This is in the afternoon. Yep, you have calendar time WHENEVER it fits your schedule and your student’s needs. We also continuously add skills and activities to this time to extend it past just days of the week and months of the year. So let’s dive in to explain calendar routines & calendar ideas in Kindergarten.
What Does My Calendar Look Like?
Here is an image of my calendar from February 2020 in my new classroom. Just as I have evolved as a teacher, so have my calendar routine and games. Please note that this calendar is not perfect, nor is any calendar perfect. I am not Pinterest perfect.
Why a Bulletin Board and Not Digital?
One main question I get, since I am a techie, is why I do not do a digital calendar but why I choose to host my calendar on my bulletin board. First, there are so many reasons! To begin, my calendar time is a constant resource for my class. They learn through it and refer back to it all the time. Therefore, I want them to have access to it at all times. If I put my calendar on a smart board, all that fantastic information gets turned off when my board gets turned off.
Next, I want my students to manipulate the components of our calendar routine themselves. One great tip to keep in mind with calendar routines and calendar ideas in Kindergarten is the ability to use the calendar as a resource. I love when my students physically add straws, change numbers, and record the weather. There is something right about taking straws in sets of 10 and bundling them.
Moreso, I can (and do!) use my smart board and technology for other elements. I just choose not to do my calendar time digital. This really helped me out when I taught virtually and face to face. I could record my calendar on a Chromebook and project the video on my smart board for everyone to see.
Realistically my calendar routine on a bulletin board has never let me down. One year, my board was down from October to summer. Many times my board has never worked for a whole school year! My bulletin board calendar has never let me down… literally. I don’t have to stress about the internet or bulbs. Instead, I make sure we have chart paper and markers.
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Basic Activities for Calendar Routines & Calendar Time in Kindergarten
To show you and explain my calendar routine better, I took my calendar picture from above and added numbers so we can walk through calendar time together! We start off slow and typically only can pay attention to the calendar for a few minutes. We stretch as our attention span grows.
1. Seasons. Since I live in Georgia, we don’t experience seasons like some other locations, so we talk about seasons in detail when we get to them. In my area, we can go years without seeing snow.
2. Months Don’t forget to include the idea of patterns in this conversation. I also talk about why my months of the year start with January, even though we begin school in August. Many little learners don’t understand the difference between a calendar year and a school year.
3. Days of the Week. I love to use this monthly calendar using the blue pocket chart. {Here is a link to the Carson Dellosa Deluxe Calendar Pocket Chart I use. I bought it once 18 years ago and it still works great.} On our calendar, we also go over special dates that are upcoming like birthdays and celebrations. Here is a calendar idea. Die cut or use little hands on the top of the blue chart to label left and right. I also do a colored pattern for the numbers for each month. We start with the pattern AB, then progress to more patterns.
4. Then, we also talk about the words “yesterday, today, and tomorrow” terms and we add a weather card to the bottom blue pocket chart. Next to the blue pocket chart, the small yellow chart is used to add straws and bundle the numbers to make sets of 10 and 100. This pocket chart can be found here.
5. We write the date. We start with the day of the week and we grow to the entire date, including the year. I suggest trying to get to the year around December so you can show the year change in January.
6. Here is where we graph the weather. Sadly, we don’t actually teach graphing until the end of the year, so I incorporate this part so we are more than ready to graph before the end of the year. My students struggle with adding the information to the bottom of the graph so I always hit that idea hard. Soon, they start excelling at graphing. We also predict what kind of weather we expect each month to get and come back to our predictions at the end of the month. For example, we may expect more rain in April. We may expect January to be cold.
7. We add the number for the days we have been in school here. We add tally marks. Then, we break the number of days in school down into tens and ones. As we approach the end of the year, we change this to count down to days left in Kindergarten instead of counting up.
8. Next, I love to ask questions to the class and graph their results here. I start by asking questions with many choices, like their favorite color. This usually gives us smaller numbers. When we start building number sense, I give fewer and fewer choices so our graphable numbers get larger and larger.
Even More Calendar Activities & Calendar Ideas
9. I use this large fish bowl to count up to 100 and counting by 1’s and 10’s. This fish bowl was made by Trend and can be found here. It has 10 sets of baby fish (1’s) and mommy fish (10’s) which are color coded! The picture sucks, but you get the point. I love the fish bowl and so do my students. I actually have two of these sets since my first one wore down over the years.
10. Counting to 100: I added this 100’s pocket chart a few years ago and I am sad I didn’t start earlier. I created different themed numbers for each month, each containing a different pattern. To begin the year, I start by flipping on the number a day. We start to predict the number and see the pattern that numbers make. Once we build the entire chart, my little learners start helping to build the chart every month. 
11. Money: We start breaking down money around February when we discuss presidents. We identify the coins and their value. We also start counting them.
12. Time: We also teach time to the hour and half hour. We don’t have to teach this, but these little learners do very well and typically LOVE this. Here is an old-school way to play and practice telling time.
13. I use a small chart for number sense work and sentence writing.
A Calendar of My Own
After losing, ripping, and needing to replace expensive calendar sets, I decided to make a printable calendar set that is ideal for a great calendar for kindergarten. This means that I can print and replace whatever elements I need whenever I need them. Plus, it matches the décor of my classroom. Plus, I love using real images as often as possible.
What a great post!! I can't wait to see what others do!!! I have the Dr. Jean CD, and barely use it, I think I will this year! Other than that most of my calendar is similar…I DO have a chart JUST for patterning though. (on top of my regular calendar pieces). I used little pieces cut from cricut to make diff patterns each month. I think this is such and important skill to do in K even though it's not in the common core, and calendar is the perfect time to "sneek" it in!
I LOVE how you numbered your calendar to show the order!! I may just have to copy this idea for my calendar post 🙂
❀Jodi
Fun In First
This was such a great blog post. As a new kindergarten teacher moving from 2nd/3rd grades, this was so helpful for me. Thank you so much!
How does your number sense chart work? Do you find all the ways to make each number each day? I love this idea!
I am SOOOO glad there are other teachers out there that still teach the calendar skills, and know how important they are! My district says that the daily calendar IS NOT COMMON CORE aligned!!!!! I know….they are just not all right! Just because it does not specifically calendar or days of the week in the CC, that doesn't mean that we should completely ignore it or stop teaching the daily calendar. I am at a loss, because I have explained over and over how important it is that they need these skills and need to see them everyday, but they won't budge! May not be Common Core— but it is COMMON SENSE!
I love your post! Thanks for sharing, and the details are helpful! I am curious about your fish tank. I found it on Trend's website, but I am wondering how you use it. Do you put a number on each day and have the kids count to that number? Do you use it for days in school? Just curious, thanks for the post!!
How is your chart paper attached to the board?
Thanks for sharing! I love calendar time!
Lindsey
Lovin’ Kindergarten
I notice your Saxon Phonics ABC cards. We do Saxon as well. What are your thoughts?
As a new Kinder teacher, I love your ideas!! I may have to find the room in my classroom to do calendar on something other than our "Brain Board" like we did in the summer session!
Like your ideas. I use a paperclip for each day to one hundred. I use a purple one for 5s and a pink one for 10s. They love to see it grow. We use it to count to 100, skip count by 5s and 10s. We also use it to measure; students, teacher, etc., make predictions, estimate how many more to 100 days of school(when we are close). the children love this.
It's always great to see another room. There are something's that are similar and some that are different between our rooms. I can't wait to add a pocket chart to our calendar area. It was already on my list for this year but now I've got some more ideas on how to use it! Thanks!
I buy a 100 piece puzzle at the dollar store and each day we glue a piece down for what day of school it is. On the 100th day we have a complete puzzle! It is fun to have them guess the picture. I like it cause they can see that 100 is a big number. The puzzles are in rows of 10 so we count by 10s then by 1s to see where the next piece goes which is great for when they need to count dimes and pennies in the future 🙂
Hi,
I'm interested to know where you glue the puzzle? Do you glue it to the bulletin board backed by cardboard? Also, do you number the pieces vertically or horizontally? Thanks, Meg
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I feel like I won the lottery with all of these awesome ideas! Thank you!
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I am so glad to see this! I gave been teaching kindergarten for 23 years and still do a bulletin board calendar! They learn so much during that time! Thanks for shating!
Love this! I do much the same thing and love the hands on and ability to manipulate actual pieces of the calendar, counting, and that they can look at and refer to all day. So fun to see someone doing some of the same thing I do! They will have enough of the smart boards and ipads the rest of their life.
Thank you so much for sharing these strategies through your Calendar time!! I also use a 100’s chart to plant the seeds of odd, even, patterning, etc. What I wanted to share was that after I teach the coins and their values (I know it is not a K standard but I feel it is necessary to at least introduce) I inform the children that on every 5 and 10 day we play our money game! At first it is a struggle but by February the kids automatically pull out the money game tray to remind me that today is the day!!