A Calendar for Tiny Kids

I finally made a calendar for Hunter. He has had his days of the week "calendar" for about two months now, and has very quickly grasped the concept of "yesterday", "today", and "tomorrow" as well as understanding the meanings of "Monday", "Tuesday", etc., and phrases such as "in two days from now" or "last Sunday". He has also learned how to read all the days of the week words. And all just by playing a 20-second game every morning!

But now I am teaching him the concept of days within a month, and months within a year. You can make a calendar that tiny children can understand even if they don't know numerals (symbols that represent numbers, such as 1, 2, 3, or IV, V, VI). Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy learning about a thing that is so important in our lives: the meaning of months, "next week", "July 3rd", etc. Making a calendar is easy and inexpensive and takes just a few seconds a day to teach.

To make it I just divided an 11" x 11" piece of cardstock into seven rows and seven columns, leaving the top row for day names ("S", "M", etc.) and the rest of the rows for day blocks. The "August" header I got from a school supply store, but you can make your own simple label just as easily. I then laminated it to we can use a dry-erase marker on it and reuse it every month.

Right now we're just using dots, adding one dot per day. Eventually we will move onto numerals though.

"LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am."

Psalm 39:4

Hunter is 3 years, 4 months old