A New Calendar for a New Year

First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year...I know we sure did! The girls (and I) are very excited about the many new additions to our "school" toys, books, and games. I spent last Saturday re-organizing the front closet and utilizing the additional shelf that Daddy installed for us last week. Although all of our "supplies" are a bit overwhelming to me, I am glad to have them all in their places and we're ready to start a new year :)

I must share one of my favorite pictures out of the many taken on Christmas morning. This "Find the Duck" Usborne book was a gift from Big Sister to Little Sister and Tiny LOVES it. Tiny has gone from not caring so much about books to becoming a lover of books in a matter of months. We are thrilled! She brings us her favorite books and backs up to our laps and makes herself right at home ;)


The girls received SO many wonderful gifts from family and friends...we are so blessed! Here they are trying out the new Melissa & Doug Pattern blocks and Melissa & Doug Stack and Sort Board (with candy canes in hand, of course!).


And now to the main reason for this post.....to introduce our new CALENDAR I have been working on for the last month or so. I had been brainstorming a way to put lots of calendar-type activities in one location for a while and came up with the idea of using a tri-fold foam presentation board to display it all. Then of course, I came across Carissa's "Calendar the Homeschooling Way" idea on the 1+1+1=1 website. And fortunately, she had done all the hard work for me, so I printed, laminated, and cut until my heart was content! *Note: the whole process of brainstorming, getting all the supplies, printing/laminating/cutting, and getting more supplies took almost the entire month of December for me to get done! Take a look at the final product:

Here's an explanation of the whole thing starting at the Top Left:
*Songs to start each morning on book rings so they can be flipped easily.
*Months of the Year song and space to clip the current month.
*Days of the Week song and space to clip the current day.

Middle Section:
*The Month, attached with Velcro so it can be changed each month.
*The year, Velcroed to the board.
*The season, also Velcroed to the board.
*The actual calendar...with Velcro on each space and number.
*Pouches to hold the Months, Days of the week, Calendar numbers, and Name cards used when we sing the NAME-O song (Little Bear's favorite part because I wrote our names with glitter glue :)
*Hundreds board, we are currently working on counting to 20.

Right Section:
*Weather chart, LB checks the weather every morning and we add the appropriate card and sing the weather song (in list of songs on the top left).
*Color of the Day pouch...she picks a color, adds it to the clip and then searches the room for things that color.
*Memory Verse Book and snack baggy with verse word cards hanging on a little hook.
*Current Memory Verse attached with clips so it can be changed every other week or so.

So far, this a HUGE hit with Little Bear! AND with Little Tiny too...although we have figured out that the only way to keep things from getting ripped off the board is to do Calendar time right after breakfast while Tiny is still in her high chair ;) One of these days very soon, she will be ready to participate in a more "hands-on" way.