A Return to the Calendar

If you know anything about me at all, you know that I have been teaching 3rd grade for a long time.  A Very. Long. Time.  I think that makes me one of the old dogs.  And the one thing this old dog has  never done is teach math by way of a calendar routine.  At the time I began teaching 3rd grade, no one on my team was doing a calendar routine, so I didn't either.  Sure, there was mental math and Daily Math Review and a few other things, but never a calendar.  I can't think of any good reason for not doing it.  Perhaps I thought of it as something better suited to lower elementary kids.  The one thing I do know is that 3rd grade can be tricky--stuck right between the little kids and the big kids.  Those are tough waters for teachers to navigate sometimes.  Putting 3rd grade learning in the same bucket as 2nd grade learning often leaves kids needing more.  But put them at a 4th grade level, and you can be overdoing it.  It's a fine line, for sure.

But last year I began to rethink this calendar thing.  I had noticed changes in the population at my school.  I had also noticed missing skills and a lack of number sense.  And that was eating away at me.  What could I do to help not only my strugglers and my students who are still learning English, but also provide a solid review and good practice for the others?  I settled on adding a calendar routine into my math every day to see if I could create some change.

My next step was to determine exactly what skills I wanted my kids to have exposure to and how to make it worth the time we were spending each day.  I created a list and then set out to create daily activities.  I decided that if we could work on several skills at least once a week, then I would feel like I was providing meaningful work for my students.  I'm finding that many of these activities are leading to more discussion and more practice.

And so far, I really like it!  After 23 days of school, it has become completely routine for the kids (and me).  They remind me when I forget (Maybe not routine yet, but I'm getting there)!  Currently, I have one student who leads the class and fills in the page on the projector for everyone to see.  My plan is to start having the kids bring a white board to the carpet and have every student write answers as we go.  This will hold a few of my "observers" a little more accountable.  :-)  Here's a look at some of the pages we've filled out so far.

If you notice, we use the day of school as the number of the day to focus on.  So when we have to write a number in word form or show a number in Base Ten blocks, we use the number of how many days we have been in school.  Here is how our Days of School board looks so far.

I'd love to hear what you are doing as well!  And I'd love to hear your feedback.  What 3rd grade skills am I missing?  If you love what you see, you can purchase these pages at my TpT store here.

Right now, I'm just feeling good that even though I may be an old dog, I'm still learning a few new tricks!