Most people use their calendars to stay on track or organize their deadlines, but for us teachers, we know that calendar time is a staple for younger students! Calendar time isn’t just a fantastic way to gather together and start your mornings in the classroom. It’s an important part of any lower-elementary teacher’s curriculum to help students understand basic concepts of time. Some children love calendar time, identifying the weather of a particular day, and singing the days of the week. But in my experience, many kids get bored easily with calendar time because they find it repetitive. And honestly, I don’t blame them!
With the added element of distance learning, some teachers may find it difficult to continue to incorporate calendar time into their daily routine. It’s crucial to have digital tools as resources to put in motion if the need for distance learning ever arises. Nowadays, it seems like distance learning will always remain a core element of classrooms, even after the pandemic is gone.
My Digital Calendar for Google Slides solves both the problems of classroom boredom at calendar time AND the need for digital tools to keep class running smoothly in the event of distance learning. Every teacher needs a fun, reliable digital calendar on hand so that students can practice calendar time at home!
Why calendar time matters in the classroom
Calendar time is a crucial part of your younger students’ mornings because it helps them build their awareness of time. I like using a past, present, and future framework during my class’s calendar time for this very reason. It follows a structure like this: “Yesterday was… Today is… Tomorrow will be…” Your students may find this repetitive, but it structures their sense of what has happened, what is happening now, and what they can expect.
I also like to use calendar time to gauge my students’ moods throughout the week. For this reason, I included 8 feeling cards in my Digital Calendar resource. This way, they can share their emotions with myself and the class. It’s a great way for them to feel seen and heard, and for myself and their classmates to understand their headspace at the start of the day.
The benefits of a digital calendar
In this age of distance learning, lower-elementary and kindergarten teachers need a way to convert their calendar time to a digital framework. Don’t let the prospect of distance learning stop you from maintaining your classroom routine! During distance learning days, it’s important to stick to your regular schedule as much as possible so that your students aren’t thrown off by an unfamiliar structure.
My Digital Calendar allows every teacher to keep up with their morning calendar time, even while they’re teaching remotely. Students can watch you drag and drop the date to its correct spot or even practice on their own. A digital calendar offers you the flexibility to accommodate your students who are home from school for any reason.
You can use this Digital Calendar in the classroom, too! If you have a Smartboard or projector, simply conduct calendar time with your digital calendar. It’s incredibly easy and quick to use, and it doesn’t take up valuable space on your classroom walls. Students are bound to be more invested in an upgraded digital calendar time than in a manual calendar time routine.
I used a digital calendar this year for online and hybrid. It really helped to keep the consistency when some students were online and some were face to face. However, toward the end of the year all my students came back in face to face and I found I needed to have a calendar reference on the wall to refer to throughout the day. I think I may return to a physical calendar in September but the digital one worked really well for online/hybrid.