As a new month arrives, it’s a reminder for me to practice using the calendar with my kids in our homeschool.

When we first started homeschooling, I thought it was necessary to have daily calendar practice. So, of course, I bought the cutest set I could find for a good deal, made precious binders, and encouraged my children each morning to complete it. The set included things like tracing days of the week, filling in the numbers for the calendar, and recording the temperature and weather.

Well, the truth is – it got really boring after a while, and it just felt like busy work. So over time we’ve made some adjustments, and I’ll be sharing our super simple approach to learning the calendar. The best part – it works!

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Daily Calendar

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with practicing the calendar daily. I know there are children that truly enjoy working in a notebook or something similar and filling out their pages each day.

In our home, I soon realized, that learning the calendar comes quite naturally, and a daily calendar wasn’t needed for us. So, we got rid of the daily practice and to keep it simple, I use each new month to practice calendar skills.

New Month = Calendar Time

We have a calendar in our school room to display the month. This is a great visual that we can refer to often. Each month I have to change out the little cards so that it displays the correct order of days and month.

When I do this, I gather the kids and we practice a few simple things to get acclimated with the calendar. So this means we practice about 12 times in the year (as long as I remember each month!) That’s it! Easy peasy.

Months of the Year

You’re about to see that we love using songs to memorize. We sing a months of the year song a few times in a row to start memorizing the names of the months. All of my kids participate, including my two year old. He tries to follow along with us – it’s adorable!

Sometimes I like to write the names of the months on the board so that my child that is learning to read can start practicing to recognize the months in print. Next month I’m thinking I’ll have my oldest write the months out for us. Then, I can see how she spells the months – great practice!

If I feel like we need to mix it up we can sing loud and soft or fast and slow. The link I shared with you for the song actually repeats the song about 3 times. So, even just listening to it one time through works!

Days of the Week

Once we finish the months, we move on to the days of the week. This is when my childhood Barney episodes come into play. The song we sing is one I remember from my own childhood! It’s still in my head – proof that songs stick! (Be sure to check out the link to that song for a trip back to the late 80s, early 90s)

I have my kids take turns pointing to the days on the big calendar as we sing them. Everyone likes a turn doing this, so we end up singing it 3-4 times. It’s also fun with a silly pointer, which we have used in the past.

Calendar Questions

Finally, I’ll ask questions about the calendar that are relevant to us and the kids will take turns answering. Below are some questions I might ask:

• Today is Tuesday. What is tomorrow? What was yesterday?
• We have a field trip on the second Friday of the month. What day is that?
• What day of the week is the 15th?
• What day is Stella’s birthday on?
• We meet with Adventure Club on Fridays. How many times will we go this month?

It Works and It’s Fun!

We have been doing this for a little over two years now, and I can see how it has worked with my littlest ones. For example, my current four year old has the songs memorized! So she knows her days of the week and months of the year already just by singing along with us each month.

My older two have known the songs for a while, so each month I challenge them with the calendar questions. It really doesn’t take much effort because I just ask questions about our own calendar.

The rest of the calendar practice comes up naturally in conversation. If the days of the week get brought up, we can sing the song quick to answer a question. For example, a question I get all the time is “Mom, how many days until my gymnastics class?” This is the perfect opportunity to put our songs to use!

This is something that has worked well for our family, and it’s been so nice not to have to worry about a sheet to fill out or print out. Every family will be different. It might be helpful to have your children sit and work on something like a calendar each day. If that’s true for you, I encourage you to keep on with it! I only share our experiences as a way to share ideas – I hope it can be helpful or inspiring to you!

What’s your favorite way to learn the calendar? Do you do something similar or do you prefer daily calendar work? I’m curious what other songs might be sung in your homes!