Daily Calendar Notebook

I have wanted to create a daily calendar notebook for years. I have seen them used in classrooms {back in my teaching days} and then last year my pal Mama Jenn posted her version here. Recently I was inspired to take the dive and create a notebook for my 2 boys, Kindergarten and 4th grade! Since I knew I was going to add a few more sheets, I decided to recreate all of the pages we would need specifically for my two boys ~ also knowing some of you may want them too! Jenn has some pages I don’t have {money, tally marks, place value and more} so be sure to get other sheets from her if you are interested in them. I personally have given up on counting our days in school since it drives me nuts to be off a day.

After the first day of the tutorial process, this has now become something the boys do together. It is a great time of team work and patience building as they work together. I am close by and help as needed, but try to stay away as much as possible so they can learn from each other. The lap desks they are using are less than $5 at Michaels!

For the cover each child just decorated a page with his name on it. You can see them set up below in front of our current wall calendar…

Each child has a mini supply box {boxes are from this awesome organizer}, here’s a peek into PacMan’s, which contains everything he needs to complete his notebook each day: crayons, pencils, dry erase click marker, Vis a Vis markers. There’s also a community eraser that sits nearby.

Here is a glimpse into the printables in each notebook, many are the same but I made a cursive version for PacMan and a print version for Krash. Be sure to make it to the end of the post if you want to see a video of me walking you through the notebook!

These printables can be downloaded for free on my Calendar webpage, just scroll to the bottom to find the section!

Month Calendars ~ each day they just write the next number in. Just print a new sheet each month.

Write the Number ~ extra handwriting practice and number word spelling practice. Pac writes them, Krash spells them out loud and just traces the number.

Day of the Week ~ each day they trace the current day and abbreviation. They also circle yesterday/tomorrow. They then sing the song together. This page is in a sheet protector so we can erase it at the end of the week. They use a Vis a Vis to prevent smudging throughout the week. The images below show Monday first, but the updated file has Sunday first to match the songs. The boys quickly corrected my mistake!

Month ~ They obviously only change this page when we have a new month. But we sing the song daily. Also in a sheet protector.

Weather & Season ~ circle the season once, do the weather graph daily.

We still use our _____ of the Day chart on our main calendar board, which is where they look to get the following items. I change them out when necessary and if I forget, Pac does it for me!

USA ~ we go through our states A-Z, still using our USA PowerPoint show and Erica’s USA printables. We don’t do a new state daily {usually 1-2 per week}, but record our new state after we finish our simple research on the state.

For our state work, we are using Road Trip USA-just the state coloring pages, and also this awesome My States Notebook. The boys work together to complete the pages, we also review all states with our USA Geography PowerPoint show.

Shapes ~ there’s also a shape cards page in the download in case you need a set to use to “choose” the shape of the day.

Colors ~ colors page is included also in the download, to cut apart and “choose” a daily color.

Pac has an extra sheet, Today’s Number. On this sheet he takes the date and makes 6 math problems to equal that number. This sheet is in a sheet protector and he erases it daily. He uses a thin dry erase click marker for this one.

Krash has 2 extra sheets, one to add a word per day to our current word family, and one to record a word per day from our You Can Read unit. Each day he reads all the words he has listed also.

Daily Drawing ~ I printed tons of free how to draw pages from the sites I have pinned here. Each day I give the boys a new laminated sheet to draw in their notebook. I did this because I simply love their drawings and I am horrible with art. It is a simple way to encourage drawing daily. I also love that I will have an awesome keepsake collection of their drawings!

Additional Items not included as printables in my download…

Mini Calendar Connections Sheet

I added in a sheet-starting with the Thanksgiving set, with all cards on one page just so I can add it to their notebook. You can find this page for this month and upcoming months within the small set of Calendar Connections cards.

Weekly Bible Verse

I included a cursive copy work page and a print trace work page for each child taken from our Bible verse of the week. We are currently going through the Seeds Family Worship Printables that Valerie shares over at Totally Tots. You can find all downloads for the sheets we use over there!

Sponsored Child{ren} Prayer Sheet…

I created a sheet that includes photos of our sponsored children and maps showing their location {all of our kids are in Rwanda, Africa}. We actually have one more little girl who we are now sponsoring {I just couldn’t resist while at Relevant}, but I don’t have her online photo yet-I will update this sheet when I do. I just used their photos from the sponsorship website and then searched on Google for a map and flag shot. I added in stars to show which city they live in, and then on the bottom right I added 2 stars to represent us and them.

This page is intended to be a visual reminder to pray for them and talk about them each day. Slipped in the back of the sheet protector that holds this sheet is our most recent letter/photo form each child. Here they were looking at our “brother” Albert and catching up on what life is like for him.

Obviously Ladybug is too young for a calendar notebook, but she certainly made it known to me that she felt left out. Here she is, where she set herself up ~ right next to her brothers, working on her dry erase board. Soon after this she asked me where her notebook was.So, I made her one.

Stay tuned…I will be sharing the printables I created for her-which have nothing to do with calendar time, but make her feel special since she now has her own notebook.

Updated, see Ladybug’s Tot Time Notebook here!

Finally, for those of you who prefer a walk through, here’s my cheesy video that I made just for you. It is a few minutes and probably very boring unless you want to see their actual notebooks and how I have them set up. I also show the differences between the 2 boys and what they complete each day.