I am a creature of habit, I function better when things are in order. Some people might say I’m anal, but it is how I work. I was that way as a teacher and I am this way as a mom. And hopefully, I’m raising kids who also do well with order in their lives. In addition to the order being the flow of our day, I have visuals that can help my kids.

5-week calendar

On the side of our fridge, there is a calendar that I can change with Vis-a-vis markers – it spans about 5 weeks. I use different colors for each person or our family as a whole. This has come in handy when my daughter has asked about something that is further down the road. She likes to look at the calendar and even asks what number she should look for. Her friend’s birthday is coming up. She asks me, “What number is Becca’s birthday?” “29. But her party is June 4.” She is able to locate both numbers, which gives her a sense of how much longer we will need to wait before we can celebrate with Becca.

Weekly calendar

In my kids’ bedroom, I have a small dry erase board that spans a week. Every Friday night, we change out our calendar and list all the things that are coming up. I’ve been doing this for about 2 years now, when my daughter, who like most children, was always curious about what was happening. My artistic husband adds some great pictures to the words listed to help her better figure out the activities. Those pictures now come in handy for my son. This has been key to my daughter recognizing the days that pass (both the number and day of the week) as well as months. She looks forward to specific days she sees on the calendar! Some days are the same each week (church, swim lessons, library, etc.). Some things happen each week, but on different days (zoo or Wonder Works). She also recognizes when our week will be busy or light.

Order of our day

Our days are pretty predictable – the location of where we head changes, but the flow does not. I know that my two appreciate the predictability. They know that as soon as they walk into any house, they sit on the steps to take their shoes off. They know that when we leave the zoo, their treat is fruit snacks in the car. With our order of the day, I am able to introduce an early sense of time to my daughter. She knows that she is to stay in her bed in the morning until 7:00 am and that the white noise machine goes off at 3:00 pm after their nap. And they both know that “8 is late” when we are trying to get upstairs to bed.

I was introduced to executive functioning the last year I was teaching before I had my daughter. I imagine this sense of the flow of the day will be beneficial to them as they go through life.

The cold presents a lot of possibilities for teachable moments with young children.  Discussing the weather in meaningful ways is a good idea.  Discussing the weather in rote and meaningless ways is not such a good idea. Usually, when I observe a classroom doing “the calendar” or “the weather” it is pretty boring.  It is removed from the children’s lives and is generally repetitive and disconnected.  However, bringing the snow in to the water table is interesting and is a much better way to discuss “the winter” or “the cold” than having a child walk over to the window to report, “It is snowing outside.”

Anytime you can discuss relative concepts with children, you are doing math.  Have the children touch the snow and ask, “How cold is it?”  “Is it colder than the water in the drinking fountain?” or “Is it colder than an ice cube?” Let the snow melt and find out how it changes.  Discuss this with the kids.  Have extra mittens in the classroom so they can play for a while in the water table with the snow.  Have children make snowballs and then arrange them from biggest to smallest.  Observe how they melt.  Have the children observe the differences between the melting of the small snowballs versus the large snowballs. Find out what they think about those differences.  Do they have their own ideas about why snowballs melt in this way.  Let them describe those ideas and then experiment again on another day, to see if their hypotheses hold true.

This is one simple way to talk about the cold that may be a bit more interesting to young children.  Try it and let us know what you think.

Happy New Year Early Math Counts Readers!

How are you explaining the “New Year” to the children in your care?  How do you explain a really big number like “2015” to young children?  I would love to hear some of your ideas and classroom practices that support calendar concepts.

Let us know.

When I was a director at a small preschool here in Chicago,  the teachers had a great way for getting children ready for change.  They would create a small calendar with only a few weeks represented.  They would then mark a “school day” with a green dot, and a “no-school day” with a red dot. They would count the green dot days.   This helped children know (or have a visual representation) of upcoming events, like the weekend or a day off of school.

Some of the children in your program may be getting ready to leave your program and start a new school.  You could create a simple calendar with red dots and green dots and then have a visual representation for those children who are leaving so they know when it is going to happen and so their friends know when it is going to happen. ( A drawing of children waving goodbye would work.) As you count down the days, be sure to reassure the children even though some may be leaving, they will always be friends and know one another.  Counting down every day will help prepare everyone for the upcoming change.