Calender Fun

God set the cycle of the seasons and gives us
signs and seasons for days and years (Genesis 1:14)

January is always a great time to start on a new calender learning routine. This January we are doing a 'calender book' of sorts based on the poem The Months by Christina Rossetti. I got the idea for this from the magazine, Homeschooling Today, January 2008 edition. Here is the poem:

January cold desolate;

February all dripping wet

March wind ranges;

April changes;

Birds sing in tune

To the flowers of May,

And sunny June

Brings longest day;

In scorched July

The storm clouds fly

Lightning torn;

August bears corn,

September fruit;

In rough October

Earth must disrobe her;

Stars fall and shoot

In keen November;

All night is long

And cold is strong

In bleak December.

We have begun to memorize this poem. Once memorized the kids have a great understanding of the order of the months. It doesn't hurt to be able to recite poetry either. The grandparents simply adore when their grand children recite poems to them!!

There are a few different ways you can put your book together.

1) You will need 13- 12X18 sheets of construction paper. One for the cover and one for each of the twelve months. Use what ever colors you would like.Fold up the bottom of each sheet of paper to create a 12X12 square. For 12 of your pages, place the pocket at the bottom, facing you. Staple along the right edge to secure the pocket. For the 13th page, place the pocket facing away from you. This will be the cover with a pocket on the back.

2) You could also use no prong folders. You could keep these as individual folders or with each folder, you glue the back of the first folder to the front of the the next folder. You can connect them all by either punching 5 or6 holes and use sting or ribbon to tie them together. Or you could use the folders with the holes in place already and put them in a small binder. If they are all glued together you can use it with out a binder .

Since paper folders don't last well with boys, we are making the small binder. We will keep our folders individual because we will have 3 kids working together and need room for the projects we do. So, we will have a folder for each month. That will give us 2 pockets per month instead of 1. On the front cover will be the name of the month as well as the verse of the poem that describes the month. We will add pictures to the front and inside of the folder to show things we are during the month. Then put our projects in the pockets.

We also keep a calender with the binder. Each day we will go over what the day and date is. We will mark off the day as it passes. We will also mark special events such as trips, birthdays, and sports events. This gives the kids a good understanding of time, distance between days or weeks, and responsibility for commitments. If you would like to take it a step further you can have them draw a symbol for the weather for that day. For example: a sun for sunny, water drop for rain, cloud for cloudy. This can help them understand the seasons.

In my next post, I will list the projects that we will do for each month. They are all based on the poem. I will also add pictures of our January folder to give you a visual.

What are waiting for? Go get your art supplies!! :)