How to Use Monthly Calendars in Literacy Centers

Monthly calendars give teachers an easy way to document learning in literacy centers.

Literacy centers within classrooms are perfect educational resources to promote independent learning. Using monthly calenders for your literacy centers can be an effective way to help students set goals, organize their time and meet learning objectives. Monthly calendars can also help teachers to provide students with individual enrichment and remediation based on the tasks they have accomplished. And calendars give teachers an almost effortless way to document students' achievements.

Instructions

Creating a Calendar for Literacy Centers

1. Create your calendar using online sources or other software programs. You will add the activities you wish students to complete each day. Depending on your preference, you may choose short activities that emphasize a simple skill, like identifying nouns, or longer activities, such as reading comprehension assignments, that require students to use all their time in the literacy center productively.

2. Add check mark boxes to each day of the calendar so students can check off the tasks they have accomplished.

3. Add a notes section to your calendar. You can place it on the back of the calendar page to give students a place to write comments or ask questions about an activity.

Using Calendars

1. Give each student a calendar at the beginning of the month to complete during their literacy center experience. Also, post a copy of this calendar in the room.

2. Explain to students that they will be responsible for completing each day's activity and must receive the teacher's initials for each day's work to validate their calendars for credit.

3. Give students an opportunity to ask questions about the activities or procedures for the calendar.

4. Ask students to write down their academic goals on the calendar, such as a difficult task they would like to accomplish or additional activities like reading 10 books that month.

5. Students must turn in the calendars at the end of each month with your initials on each day in order to receive credit. They should also show that they have made an effort to reach one of their own academic goals within the month. They can enter this information in the notes section.

6. Revise your calendar for the next month and begin the process again.

References

• Literacy Network:The Literacy Connection Calendar for Preschoolers
• Read Write Think: Literacy Centers - Getting Started

Resources

• The Teacher's Corner.net: Printable Calendars