Preschool Calendar Time

With the start of the school year coming up, I’m adding in a daily calendar time to our homeschooling routine. I know many preschool and kindergarten teachers start each day with fun songs and activities to build and solidify skills such as letter name and sound recognition, base ten and counting practice, and calendar skills. I’m going to do this each “school” morning with my preschooler and my toddler as well (even though he’ll probably be running around the room rather than sitting and singing!)

Pledge of Allegiance:

We did the pledge in every school I taught in before lessons began in the morning, so I plan to teach it to my boys as well. It has some great concepts in it that I think we all could learn from and live by!

I pledge allegiance to the flag

of the United States of America

And to the republic for which it stands

One nation, under God, indivisible

with liberty and justice for all

Bible memory verse: Each day for one month we read the same Bible memory verse. I write each word of the verse on a separate post it note and stick them in our calendar area and we point to each word as we say the verse. This also builds sight word recognition!

Calendar skill building activities:

-Calendar practice: I use the Melissa and Doug calendar to review the date, the days of the week for yesterday, today and tomorrow, special holidays or activities for the day, the season and weather and how we are feeling that day. It’s also great for pointing to when you sing your days of the week and months songs so your little can pick up on what those words look like!

–Days of the week song: This song is to the tune of “The Adam’s Family”. (I’m linking YouTube videos to all of the songs just in case you don’t know how they go- just click the underlined section title!) *Please excuse the bullets next to the lyrics- I couldn’t figure out how to make them closer together without them- LOL New blogger here- can ya tell?!

• Days of the week (clap clap)
• Days of the week (clap clap)
• Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (clap clap)
• There’s Sunday and there’s Monday
• There’s Tuesday and there’s Wednesday
• There’s Thursday and there’s Friday
• There’s Saturday!
• Days of the week (clap clap)
• Days of the week (clap clap)
• Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (clap clap)

–Months song: I’m not sure what tune this song is…but anytime you can put something to music, kids have a tendency to learn it quicker! (I taught my little how to spell his name in about 1 minute by teaching him to sing the letters to the song “B-I-N-G-O”!) You can do the Macarena hand motions with it as well for fun!

• January, February, March April
• May, June, July August
• September, October, November, December
• These are the months of the year!

-Base ten practice with straws: Each day you are “in school” add a straw to your cup then have your little count how many tens and ones you have for the day. Write each number on the cup with a dry erase marker. Each time you get to ten straws in your ones cup, bundle them with a rubber band and place it in the tens cup. Then have your little count the value of the straws (count the tens first by 10, then the ones by 1…ie. if you have 2 tens and 3 ones you’d count 10, 20, 21, 22, 23). This activity helps build the base for our base ten number system (ten ones make a ten, ten tens make a hundred and so on) which is helpful for understanding larger numbers later on. It also practices counting by tens once you get a few bundles which builds number fluency!

Number practice:

-Digit and phone number review: Each day we review the names of the digits 0-9 by pointing to them and saying them. Then my little practices our phone number 5 times (a kindergarten social studies standard).

Geography practice:

-Address/my geography review: Each day we go over our address (another K social studies standard) by high fiving each part and saying it (my little made up the address for the photo…hahaha). We also go over what our city, state, country, and continent are using a world map (I can’t tell you how many third graders didn’t know this!)

–Continent and oceans song: We sing this song daily too, pointing to each continent and ocean on the map as we go- it was a hit in my 3rd grade classroom and how I taught the kids their continents and oceans. I’ve linked a video of my singing it above- it’s to the tune of “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands”. I got the map on Amazon for about $14 and stuck it to the back of the door in our school room along with the rest of our calendar supplies. Here are the lyrics:

• (Chorus)
• He’s got the whole world in His hands
• He’s got the whole world in His hands
• He’s got the whole world in His hands
• He’s got the whole world in His hands

• He’s got North and South America in His hands
• He’s got Europe, Asia, Africa in His hands
• He’s got Antarctica and Australia in His hands
• He’s got the continents in His hands

• He’s got the Atlantic and Pacific in His hands
• He’s got the Indian and Southern in His hands
• He’s got the Arctic Ocean in His hands
• He’s got the oceans in His hands
• (repeat chorus)

Alphabet practice:

-The ABC song: Sing the ABC song with your little and point (or have them point) to each letter as you sing.

–Letter names and sounds: point to each letter and say its name and sound. Be careful with the consonants not to add a vowel to the end…for example, H says hhhhh- a sound made up of just air and no vocal cords, not “Huh” like many people tend to do! This is important with young readers because imagine they come across a new word like “letter”…if you’re trying to sound it out “luh-eh-tuh-tuh-eh-ruh” you’re probably not going to make the connection to that saying “letter”. “Lll-eh-tt-tt-eh-rrrr” however will probably get them there! This is really tricky, and I don’t even do it perfectly- those guttural letters like G and J always trip me up! I’ve attached a video to the section title to show you what I’m talking about…it’s easier to hear than to explain, especially if this is new to you!

-Flashcards: We recently added flashcards to our calendar routine in lieu of saying the letters and sounds while pointing to them on the wall. I feel like my little is better able to focus on what the letters look like when he’s right in front of me with the cards in my hand. We also review numbers 1-10 this way! You can get them at Dollar Tree or sometimes Target for $1!

-Letter of the week: Each week we also focus in on one letter that goes along with our theme. Monday I introduce it and show my little how to write it and we go over it’s sound, Tuesday we talk about what it looks like (ie. for letter V he said it looked like a beak), Wednesday he practices writing it, and Thursday I have him think of words that start with the letter. I choose letters he doesn’t already know so we can make the most of our learning time.

-Work pages: I also recently purchased this preschool work page book to practice basic skills each morning with my little. It’s AWESOME and he loves it because he feels like he’s really in school! LoL It covers letter and number recognition and writing practice, patterns, prewriting skills and colors/coloring. We typically do 2-3 pages a day of letters and numbers and let his little brother do the pages he already knows (like colors and prewriting).

Feel free to add whatever you like to your calendar time as your little learns and grows! Since my little knows our phone number and address, we don’t practice those daily anymore (just at random to keep them in his head), but we’ve added a song about the planets from our Space Week, as well as skip counting by 10’s and 5’s. The point is to tailor your calendar time to focus in on the basic skills your little still needs to acquire, and to move on when they’ve learned what you set out to teach them!