Chronicles: Calendar for Homeschoolers

We finally disassembled our homeschool classroom. This plan has been in the works for a while since baby number 3 was added to our family. We needed the extra room so we took the boys' desks and set them up in their bedrooms. We also took our daily calendar work, which is traditionally hanging on the wall, and put it into a sheet that they work on 2 -3 days a week. If you are in a situation where you don't have a space in your home to dedicate to your homeschool then you may want to try this.

Calendar time was an opportunity to review concepts so that they wouldn't forget them as we went throught the school year. It includes the calendar, weather, measurement concepts, counting money, time, numeric operations, place value, spelling rules, sentence building and design, and language concepts. I knew I would no longer have a "Calendar Wall" for them in our house so I condensed the calendar wall to a calendar page. It includes many of the same concepts. I prepare a different one for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It includes a spiraling review of the concepts to keep them in practice and at the forefront of their minds.

If you decide this works for you and your family here are some concepts you may want to have in your calendar review:

• A calendar - use MS Word and create a new document. The page should show many different calendars you can choose from. Condense it and embed into your page so that you can add questions to the bottom of it about the number of days and weeks. Also, be sure to ask questions about elapsed time over weeks and the number of specific days of the week.
• A thermometer - you don't have to focus on the weather in your town only. We are using My Father's World curriculum, which is all about the globe. I ask questions about climate and clothing while having them "read" a picture of a thermometer.
• Clocks - I use these in many ways. I have them convert digital time to analog time, create times in an analog clock and determine AM / PM by a narrative story about what people are doing at that time of day. I give them two times and ask how much time has elapsed between the two.
• Money - Pictures of coins are used for them to count the money and determine how much change they will get from a purchase or how much they will have if they add it to another amount.
• Number patterns - I include patterns and have them find the missing numbers of the pattern.
• Operations - Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are all used to keep these skills sharp. I generally focus on basic facts and leave the more complex problems for their actual math hour.
• Place Value - They have numbers that must be written in different forms. They also have to tell which place a certain number is in. They are required to say the numbers aloud for reading purposes.
• Sentences - I give them sentences full of mistakes and then a blank line for them to correct them. On every other day I give them the answers to compare their work.
• Spelling - I give them misspelled words to correct, phonograms in a series to recognize and mark, or switch the phonogram and tell why it needs to change
• Language - this includes everything from parts of speech to use of homophones and homographs. Anything can really be a part of this section. I switch it up often so that they stay sharp in these skills.