Calendar Math: The First Week in PICTURES!

Like myself, many of you learn best when you actually see it (which is why, I suspect, you follow blogs ;) ) So I thought I would show you the very first week of our Calendar Math pages in pictures.  I wrote about the process of how I set up the first week of Calendar here, but I think that actually SHOWING you may be a bit more effective :)  If you aren't sure what Calendar Math is, read this first.  Then come back :)

So here we go.

The first day of school I had pre-printed the entire sheet, with only a few boxes left open for the students to complete.  You can see that these are fairly *easy* things for the kids to do.  They should have some background knowledge in them.  This first day is simply to lay the foundation of working independently and trying your hardest to complete the task.









On Day 2, I crossed out a few less items.  These were things that I had showed them how to do when reviewing on Day 1.  I really didn't expect mastery, just their willingness to try.  We then went over it as a class.  I expected them to copy the answers I was giving, so that they would have an idea of what the completed form should look like.

Day 3 had even less items crossed off.   Again, I did not expect mastery...just willingness to work.  I gave the students about 15 minutes to complete this on their own before we went over it.









On our final day of the week, the kids were given the complete Calendar sheet, with nothing crossed off.  This day, I gave them the most time to work independently (about 20 mins!) as I walked around.  Again, I was looking for more of a work stamina thing rather than mastery of the skills.  When we went over it, I had them copy the answers they were missing.

I then had them hold on to this completed packet for an example for the next week.

From these pictures though, you should see that there really isn't any harm in just "diving in" to the Calendar.  I know that sometimes we like to take things slow, but really, with Calendar, I find it best to go full force.  Since there is SO much repetition, the kids WILL eventually get it.  They will learn and they will soar.  So don't be afraid to just go for it.

How do you introduce Calendar to your students?

And, if you would like the 4th or 5th grade Starter Kits (with explanations, and the pre-printed sheets you see above, you can click here for 4th and here for 5th :) )   However, you can also use the free non-editable single sheets on my blog that can be found here.