Newsletter Articles

The Calendar: You're Still Doing It in Pre-K?

By Connie Valk, Children's Institute

Best practices in early childhood practice and the increasing knowledge of child development have led early childhood professionals to recognize that children spending time on worksheets, coloring adult-drawn forms, and drilling on flashcards have no place in a quality early childhood environment. Practitioners know that children need to
be engaged in open-ended activities that encourage exploration and focus on play as a central ingredient of the child's entire development -- cognitive, social-emotional, sensory- perceptual, and physical. I celebrate the fact that in most prekindergarten classrooms, worksheets, coloring sheets, and flash cards have finally been banished!

Why, then, if we see the inappropriateness of some activities, do early childhood professionals insist upon retaining the "calendar ritual" at circle time? The "calendar ritual" (described in Engaging Children's Minds: the Project Approach by Lilian G. Katz and Sylvia Chard) starts like this: The children are seated on the floor facing a large calendar showing the month of February. Then the teacher asks them what day it is. They call out the days of the week. Eventually she/he coaxes them into agreeing on the correct answer. The ritual continues with numbers - the date, the number before and after, or patterns of numbers. The routine typically consumes twelve minutes.

Katz and Chard conclude that such daily rituals can undermine a child's confidence.
Time, space, and age are beyond the grasp of most preschoolers. Young children have poor recall of list-like information that is not embedded in meaningful context. In other words concreteness is the name of the game for the threes and fours, and the calendar ritual is frankly a waste of time. Katz and Chard conclude: Leave the calendar skill-building to five and six year olds, who are far more ready to grasp these concepts!

Okay, you are asking: "If I shouldn't be doing the calendar ritual each day, what should I be doing?" How can I introduce days of the week and months and dates in a more child-friendly, concrete, developmentally appropriate way?

Here are some ideas to get started. You will be able to think of many more!

• As children come in the door on Monday, after greeting them, talk about what they did over the weekend. Introduce through conversation the idea that they do not come to school on Saturday and Sunday, but return on Monday.
• If there is a special event on a regular day of the week, mention it. For example, if Mrs. Jones, your faithful volunteer comes every Tuesday, say as children are leaving on Monday, "Tomorrow is Tuesday. Oh, good, that means that Mrs. Jones will come tomorrow." This way, children will gradually come to understand that days of the week are reoccurring events, and that particular happenings occur on particular days.
• Sing some songs about the days of the week - "Today is Monday, today is Monday…"
• Read books about the days of the week and months of the year. There are lots of them out there. My favorite is Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak, which gives a humorous poem about each month that children will be chanting before you know it.

If you still are wondering, what should you be doing if you're not doing calendar at circle time, I have a few ideas to get you started. Please don't do them all, but rather choose from them to add variety and spice to your circle time. First of all, remember that circle times should be short and sweet (ten minutes is plenty for threes; fours can sometimes handle 15 minutes) and the time should be packed with concrete experiences.

Ideas:

• Finger plays, songs, chants, flannel board stories, or poems (The Universal Pre-K music website, designed by music specialists with the RCSD is a great place to get ideas - there are even forms to cut out and use for flannel board figures! http://www.rcsdk12.org/prek/blocks)
• Pass around and talk about an unusual feather found on a walk.
• Problem solve: "Let's think of kind things to say to the new girl who will begin tomorrow."
• When someone's new baby brother is born, talk about babies and read a book about them.
• Read a book related to your theme or to a new experience - give each a blueberry to eat, and then read Blueberries for Sal.
• Talk about a shared experience and write down key phrases on chart paper, reading the phrases quickly afterward (children can re-read the phrases at choice time if they like).
• Stay tuned for wiggles, and interject a movement activity or song - dance to a favorite jazz CD.
• Talk about plans for the day.
• Introduce a new center or activity.
• End with each child telling (or singing!) what his/her plans are for choice time.

So, the most important reason that early childhood best practice for threes and fours leaves out the calendar ritual, is that there are far more developmentally appropriate activities to do that will keep your children engaged and where real learning will take place. Allowing children to struggle with activities that are developmentally beyond their understanding is simply not good teaching practice. Let's leave the calendar ritual to the kindergarten or first grade children who are ready to grasp these concepts!