Free Printable Calendars and Planners for Children

Speaking from several decades of teaching, one of the most challenging concepts for students to master is calendar skills. Calendar skills are vital skills for personal organization and time management. Here are free printable calendars for children. Personal calendars provide visual aids to teach these concepts. Children can use them to track and measure time. Calendars make excellent tools to practice other math skills: counting, counting backwards, skip counting (by 2, 5 or 10), learning base ten concepts and place value, adding and subtracting.

Homemade Calendars provides links for hundreds of free printable calendars in dozens of different styles. There are calendars for each month and year. Calendars have a variety of graphics and font styles as well as some different language options.

I recommend that teachers, parents and homeschoolers print monthly calendars for their children beginning as young as 4-5 years old. Children can attach these calendars to their desks or work surface for easy reference. If your classroom does not have personal work spaces for children, attach the calendars to clipboards, so that each child can interact personally with the calendar.

Young children can use calendars as counting charts. Calendars help children mark days and months also. As students become more comfortable with reading and math, they can begin to practice using the calendar as a time grid. Provide children with stickers, stamps or bingo markers. Children can note days and events on their calendars. Many early elementary and preschool teachers use a large classroom calendar with pattern tags to indicate the days. For example October, they may use a Halloween themed pattern. If students have access to patterned stamps, they can duplicate the classroom calendar on their personal one.

Remember the teaching slogan: I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. This is our motto in special education, but it should be our motto in all educational settings. The more activities and manipulatives that we put into the hands of students, the more we facilitate true learning. For more on hands-on learning visit my linked blogs.