Are you starting to plan for Back to School?

The summer is the time that I start getting organized for the upcoming school year. The very first thing I do is print off a school year calendar and start planning when I will teach what, based on the school year events/holidays.

There are definitely some concepts I don’t want to cover (like division or anything with regrouping) when it is a busy time in the school and my students are not completely focused. Because of this I put all known holidays/big events in the calendar and then I start planning.

Where do I find my calendar templates?

I’ve got you covered! Every year I update my calendar to print off and I am giving it to you all for FREE! Yup, FREE! Check it out now.

Each page has a full month and the spaces are large enough to add lots of text! The calendars go from August 2021 to July 2022.

Each page also has a clip art image that is small enough not to use all your computer ink, but big enough to add some flair to your month.

Other ways to use the calendar:

Use it for yourself to take to staff or team meetings and schedule all your events and meetings.
Attach it to your classroom newsletter with important events filled in.
Fill it out with daily homework tasks for students.
Students can use it to record their daily home reading.
Display it in the hallway as a place for parents to sign up to volunteer in the classroom.
Use as a student behavior chart.

This year I had a whole new use for this calendar. I won’t get into too many details but here is the story.

A parent kept complaining that her daughter was being picked on at recess and lunch. I was confused because when I talked to the student, everything was fine. I am not sure why she was saying one thing to her mom and another to me (that doesn’t really matter here) but something needed to change.

During a conversation with the mom, we decided together that I would do check ins with her daughter after every break she was with other kids. So that meant first thing in the morning and after recess and lunch.

I needed somewhere to record these check ins that would be easy for me to track and quick to see any incidents. This calendar was the place.

I divided each day into 3 sections (morning, recess, and lunch). If the student reported that everything was fine I put an X on that section. If something happened, I put a ✔ and explained on the back.

This was great because the mom could see that things were not actually happening to her daughter at home. Both her and I noticed that the student stopped telling her mom incidents were happening when she knew we were both communicating about it. Win-Win!

There are many ways to use a calendar in a classroom. Let me know in the comments if you use them in any other way.