Daily calendar time is a favorite for my students in my classroom. What they don’t know is that everything we do during calendar time serves a purpose. Every song I use during our morning calendar time is designed to help my students learn the days of the weeks, months of the year, types of weather, etc.
Our calendar time is a combination of songs and activities related to the calendar. I also have an interactive calendar I use to help my students receptively identify calendar information. I want to share with you some of my favorite songs that I use during calendar time in my classroom and tell you why they are some of our favorites!
I follow pretty much the same calendar routine everyday in my classroom. Students come to the circle area and we do the following routine:
- Identify the month
- Count the number of days within the month
- Review special activities that are coming up in the month
- Identify the day of the week; add in yesterday and tomorrow as my students become more proficient
- Identify the Weather
The first song I use everyday is the Months of the Year song. I love this song because of it’s repetitive nature. It’s one of those catchy songs that will get stuck in my students heads and really make those months of the year a skill they’re going to master. I especially like that the visuals on the song are the names of the months. This gives my students some extra exposure to the printed month names.
Following our days of the week song, my students and I talk about the weather for the day. I mean, in California, we get a lot of practice saying “Today’s weather is sunny” but we get exposed to the different kinds of weather with this sweet song. I love the visuals of the weather along with the words. This is a song that a lot of my verbal students can’t help but sing along with.
These are our 3 favorite songs to use along with our calendar routines in our classroom. What are some of your favorites?
My students' most favorite time of the day is easily our calendar time. I created playlists on youtube for the months of the year, days of the week, and seasons on my youtube channel and linked those playlists into my interactive smart board routine. My students really enjoy when it is their "job" to pick that day's music for days or months or seasons during calendar time. They all know all the words to every song, even some of my less verbal students can pick their favorite songs.
That's such a great idea! I love the "job" of picking the songs!