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Calendar Board

A few weeks ago I was inspired to create a real calendar board for the preschoolers in my house. After scouring the internet for ideas (there are hundreds), I ended up with this:


It's a calendar/magnetic white board/corkboard that I've had for a long time. I made everything myself, using construction paper, random strips of thin cardboard out of some packaging, packing tape. I thought about buying fun things, and visited several dollar stores in search of the perfect "back to school" paraphernalia, but to no avail. So, it was just me and the scissors for an hour one night!

Included on the board, we have:

The Calendar
Construction paper and stickers "laminated" in packing tape for the months, thin cardboard with Sharpie numbers (again "laminated") for the dates. They're stuck on with Scotch brand removable mounting squares, cut into even smaller squares (because I was too cheap and short on time to look for Velcro dots). We're flipping a number over every morning, Wheel-of-Fortune style.


Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow
This is the one thing I saw on someone else's board that I really liked. Owen knows the days of the week (or, at least, he can sing the song, to the tune of "Oh my darling/Clementine"), but figuring out what comes next and what came before are a little trickier. I was also VERY pleased with my little pockets. It's the simple things . . . 


The Weather
There are a lot of printable weather charts/wheels/graphs out in blog land. I didn't really love any of them. Honestly, I don't even really love my own -- what is that, that's supposed to be a snowflake? A sparkly blue asterisk? Weird. But, I got to use my glitter foam sticker sheets, and cotton balls, and Owen's pretty tickled about moving the clothespin around as the weather changes. (God was very sweet to give us a day of varied weather today, so Owen could keep updating the board.)


On the Corkboard: a hook for Levi's memory verse packet, a checklist of chapter books I'd like to read aloud some day, storage (in simple mailing envelopes) for the months and a few "special day" tags, like birthdays or the first day of winter.

Simple, frugal, no more than we need for this year. I hereby encourage you to scavenge what you have before buying materials, especially for preschool!! :)



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