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Thursday, October 28, 2010

How to Make a Wall Calendar for Preschool: A Homeschooler's Project

When we decided JMonster would be homeschooled, we talked to him about what HE wanted homeschooling to be like.

“Carpet time, Mommy!”

Carpet time?  What does THAT mean?

We talked about it some more and it came out that
carpet time = calendar time. 
And the weather. 
He loved the songs. 
He loved counting!

So I went about making a calendar space for us in our “classroom”.



I’ll show you

HOW TO MAKE A HANGING WALL CALENDAR

if you promise to not laugh at my drawings. 

Promise?

          Before you get started:

 Gather/Purchase or make the items you will need to make the calendar and go on the calendar. 
  • Large versions of the twelve months of the year.
  • A blank calendar with the days of the week at the top.
  • Two sets of numbers in different colors.
  • Weather chart...there are many designs for this.  Be creative!
  • Yesterday/Today/Tomorrow signs with days of the week.
(I bought all of the above items at Dollar Tree.  
You could easily print them off of the computer...
or hand draw them.  
If you have the ability, LAMINATE it all!  
You’ll be happy you did!)
  • Velcro and/or magnetic tape to hang the items on the wall calendar felt, as well as to attach numbers directly to calendar.
  • 2 (or 4 if you make 2 of the wall hangings like I did) wooden dowels the width of your hanging.
  • A length of rope to hang the calendar by.
  • A large piece of felt...you choose the color!  Make sure you have enough extra to make your pockets out of.
  •    
    Getting Started:
  • Sew a pocket hem at the top and a pocket hem at the bottom of your felt.  I left our sides unfinished.  The pockets need to be large enough to place a dowel inside.
  •   Decide the placement of your calendar, the month, and where you will need pockets to hold the “extras”.
  •   Cut out your pockets.  I chose to make mine with deep sides, this is YOUR project so you get to choose the style!  Do be sure your pockets are deep enough and long enough to hold what they are supposed to hold.
         
        (To make pockets that look like mine, make a parallelogram...the bottom edge should be just wider than the items it will hold plus 2X the depth front to back you are wanting:)
        • Sew along the length where you want the fold to make the depth:
        (Fold the pocket along these lines and sew about 1/8” in to make this fold stay.)  
        • Place the outer edge of the pockets on the main piece of felt exactly behind the folds you made.  Sew around the edge about 1/8” in.  Don’t worry!  It will look “finished” when you are done.
        (Sew these edges on the big piece of felt behind where the folds are!)
        • Get your length of rope and tie it to either end of your dowels.
        • Put your velcro/magnetic tape on your items and attach to felt.
        • Put your velcro/magnetic tape on your numbers, months, days of the week, weather items depending on how they attach.  Some of ours don’t need these items because they slide in.  
        • Place all of the extras in the pockets you just made!
           
      If you have any question, please, please feel free to ask!  I made this by trial and error...let MY errors be yours so you can learn from my mistakes and not have to make your own.

      Very soon I will post about how we USE our wall calendar! 

      Stay Tuned!

      1 comment:

      Gretchen said...

      Looks awesome! You are so crafty mama!!