How we do our Calendar Time

This is a reply to a comment in which I was asked how we did circle time at home.  Our circle time is mostly calendar time.

We are a trilingual family, and I really try to incorporate that into calendar time.  We start school with the ringing of a bell - just to make it fun and because it reminds of of Little House on the Prairie.  The kids come running into the school room and as they sit down on the floor, I sing, to the tune of Morning Bells are Ringing,

Goodmorning, Bear.  Bonjour Bear. 

How are you?  Comment ca va?  

Very well, I thank you.  Tres bien, merci.  

How are you? Comment vas-tu?

We sing it a second time for J-jo.

Then we sing, "there are seven days" to the tune of Oh My Darling.  We usually alternate singing in French and Spanish one day and in English on the next day because it can be quite lengthy to sing every song in all three languages every day.  I made my own printables for days of the week and months of the year because I needed all three languages there.

That is followed by "Today is __________" to the tune of Morning Bells are Ringing.  I've translated this song into French and Spanish as well.  If you are interested in those details, email me or leave me a comment.

Next we sing the Months of the Year.  I use the tune that Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations uses.  We sing that in all three languages as well, again, alternating every other day.

I am limited on wall space for the calendar.  It actually used to be up on the wall, then came crashing down on us one day so I just slip it at the top of our bookcase for now.

 I just place it on the floor for calendar time.

The rest of our calendar time is on the back.  I put the "Make today's date with Coins" and "What's the Weather?" portions of Carisa's calendar printables on laminated envelopes and just have velcroed the envelopes to the edge of the calendar.  We sing "What's the Weather?" song to the tune of Oh My Darling, in all three languages.

On the back side is where Bear does her tallies and makes a math equation for today's date and we count the days in school.  J-jo usually disappears for this portion of the calendar.  The printables for this that I am using are from Confessions of a Homeschooler (the sheet to the right in the photo) and from Mama Jenn.

I would like to sing some other theme related songs to them during calendar, but I've usually gone beyond J-jo's attention span, so I normally just sing the songs (most are from canteach.ca) that relate to our theme as we eat our lunch.

I also have an Early Concepts Sing-Along Flip Chart and CD that we sing for J-jo every few days.