25 Ideas for Using Education World Monthly Calendars

Each month, Education World provides a monthly calendar that teachers can use to help students practice essential skills. Regular practice will keep students' skills from getting rusty -- and should improve test scores too! Included: Twenty-five ideas for using the monthly calendars!

Using the Calendar The Education World monthly calendar can be used for many purposes. Teachers might use it each day to * reinforce skills taught the day before or provide practice with skills that have been mastered. * reinforce a wide variety of skills or emphasize a different skill each month. For example, in September, you might use the calendar to emphasize parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. In October, you might use it to reinforce the skill of telling time. * provide one daily question or a group of five questions. * provide questions in a multiple-choice format so the activity doubles as test-taking practice. * offer an activity that could be checked immediately, corrected during the daily class meeting, or handed in at the end of the month for a grade.

Each month, Education World provides a new calendar for students and teachers. Use the calendars and their themed art as a simple coloring and numbering activity or as a practical tool to extend student learning.

Click here to view the calendars in
printable and editable formats.

Try using the calendar as part of a daily activity. As students enter the room, they might look to a board or chart where you post a daily "bell-ringer" activity. The students get right to work on that activity and write their answers in the calendar space for that day.

Following are 25 ideas for using the monthly calendar to extend classroom learning. These ideas are intended to get creative teachers thinking about the variety of ways in which they might use the calendars to provide daily practice in essential skills.

• Post a math problem that reinforces a skill recently taught or mastered. The students write the answer to the problem in the day's space on the calendar page.
• Write a pair of homonyms on the board. Provide a sentence in which one of those words is missing. For example: I could not decide what to where or wear _____on the first day of school.
  Students write the correct homonym in the day's space on the calendar. (wear)
• Write on the board the geographic coordinates for a state or country. For example: 110 degrees west longitude, 34 degrees north latitude. Students use an atlas to identify the place. (Arizona)
• Provide the phonetic spelling of a word. Have students write the word. (The word might be one of the students' spelling or vocabulary words.) Students might use dictionaries to help them complete this activity. Spelling counts!
• Write a fraction on the board. Have students illustrate the fraction.
• Create a daily activity using one of the "every day" Internet resources identified in the Education World article 'Every Day' Activities Across the Curriculum.
• Post a list of ten words; five of the words should rhyme. Have students identify the rhyming words.
• Write on the board a word that has multiple meanings. Then write a sentence in which the word is used. Have students find the word in their dictionaries. Which meaning defines the way in which the word is used in the sentence? Write the number that corresponds to that meaning of the word.
• Write an amount of money on the board, and have students identify coins that would total that amount. For example: 87 cents might include three quarters, one dime, and two pennies.
• Provide a math word problem for students to solve.
• Write a measurement on the board, such as 4 3/4 inches, and have students draw a line on the back of the calendar that measures that exact length.
• Write five words on the board. Have students alphabetize those words.
• Identify four historic events. Students use available resources to tell the year in which those events occurred. Possible online resource: 20th Century Year by Year.
• Write a sentence that includes an error of punctuation or grammar. Have students identify the error, describe the error in the space on the calendar, and correctly rewrite the sentence on the back of the page.
• Use an overhead projector to display on the wall a paragraph or a brief story or news article. Have students answer a question(s) about the reading passage.
• Write a word meaning on the board. Provide four words. Students must identify the word that goes with the meaning. (Students might use dictionaries to do this activity.)
• Provide the time of sunrise and sunset in your local area. Students must figure the amount of daylight for that day.
• Provide students with a phone book. Write on the board the name of a person or business. Students use their alphabetizing and research skills to locate and write the phone number of that person or business.
• Provide clues about a state or province. For example:

  This state gets its name from a former king of England. The honey bee is this state's state insect. It is the tenth most highly populated state in the United States. This state was the birthplace of Jimmy Carter, who was the 39th president of the United States.

  Students use available resources to identify the state. (Georgia)
• Write a word that includes a prefix or suffix. Students must identify and correctly spell the root word of that word.
• Write the name of a country on the board. On which continent can that country be found? Students write the continent name on their calendars. (Alternative: Write the name of a state and have students identify the correct region.)
• Write a series of numbers, and have students write the next two numbers in that series. For example: 3, 6, 9, __, __. (12, 15)
• Post a clock in the front of the room. Set the hands on the clock at a specific time. Students write the correct time on their calendars.
• Write on the board a word spelled three different ways; only one of the three spellings is correct. For example: strainge, strange, stranje. Which is the correct spelling of the word? You might provide a sentence that includes the word. For example: Being in school on a Saturday felt very ________.
• Provide the names of five famous people. One of those people was born on that day's date. Students use available resources to identify which of the famous people was born that day.

ADAPT THE CALENDAR FOR YOUR USE!

Which skills are you teaching? Which skills should your students have mastered? You can adapt the monthly teaching calendar to reinforce almost any skill. The calendar will provide students with daily practice using their newfound skills. You'll probably find that its usefulness is limited only by your imagination!