Preschool Activity – Calendar Concepts for Preschoolers
Time is a tricky concept for preschoolers to understand. Developmentally, they are still learning to have patience (although let’s face it, most adults haven’t quite mastered that lesson yet either).
Learning the days of the weeks and months of the year is an important skill for preschoolers, but with a little bit of repetition and some fun activities, it is easily mastered. This simple preschool activity will help preschoolers practice writing their numbers, learn left to right correspondence, and become familiar with important calendar concepts.
Age Recommendation – 4-8
Materials Needed
- A Blank Calendar – I like the one available at Lakeshore Learning (you can get individual calendars in the store if you have one nearby), but any blank calendar will work. If you can’t find one, make your own by printing blank calendar pages and binding them together.
- A Wall Calendar
- Something to Write With – Younger preschoolers may prefer to write with a crayon or extra thick pencil while older preschoolers can use a pencil (with or without a pencil grip depending on whether or not they have learned how to hold a pencil correctly – see our pencil holding teaching tips here).
Instructions
Introduce the concept of the calendar by singing simple songs about the days of the week or the months of the year. A bit of repetition is needed before preschoolers are able to learn these songs, but as they memorize the words they’ll learn valuable concepts that will make it much easier to understand how a calendar works later on.
Put your wall calendar down where your preschooler can easily see it. Your preschooler will use this to make it easy to see what day of the week each month starts on.
Have your preschooler open up his blank calendar to the first month. Help him write “January” at the top if it is not already printed on the calendar. Have your preschooler write the dates in each square for the month, using the wall calendar as a guide. Don’t worry if the number takes up the entire square. You’re not trying to create a calendar that you will use to write your schedule on each month – you’re simply giving your preschooler a visual way to see the passage of time and give him a chance to practice writing his numbers.
As your preschooler writes his numbers, watch to be sure that he is writing each number correctly. If you need to, show your preschooler how to put his pencil at the top and use downward strokes to form each letter. Encourage your preschooler to write the numbers from left to right rather than filling them in at random because this will help him to learn left to right correspondence, which is an important early reading skill.
Repeat for the remaining months in the calendar. This is a lot of work for a preschooler to do in one session. You can split this up so you do 1 month at the beginning of the month all year, or just break it up into short sessions and finish the entire thing at the beginning of the year.
Once your preschooler has written the numbers in for each month, he can draw illustrations for each month. This is a great opportunity to talk about holidays that we celebrate each month, seasons, and other changes that happen during the year.
Older Children – This activity does not need to be limited to preschoolers. While older children may not need to learn how to write their numbers, they may need help with handwriting or may still be struggling to understand how a calendar works. My 2nd grader sat down and did this activity with his younger brother and loved it. He knows the months of the year already but is still working on memorizing their order and figuring out how many days are in each month.
