Linear Calendar 1

How to Make a Linear Calendar For Your Kids in 2024?

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linear calendar is really helpful for preschool kids, while it is also fun to prepare – you can try it for your home or even in early childhood classrooms!

We made our one at home, and this visual timeline helped us a lot for many years to keep track of the days of the months. I would say it is a pretty effective early childhood tool 😊

Montessori-inspired linear calendars

I remember very well, that when I first heard about linear calendars it immediately grabbed my attention. Montessori linear calendars show you the whole year in one straight line across the room, making it a great way to introduce the concept of time, the months of the year, the days of the week, and kids also have the chance to mark special days.

My Daughter was at an age when she kept asking about time, and how many days we had till this or that event… but she was still too young to understand the concept of a traditional calendar format. So we started to search for a different aspect, a sort of toddler calendar, that preschool and young children can understand and use daily. A Montessori linear calendar was exactly what we needed!

As we had some time to spend together at home, we decided to prepare our own one, which was besides being useful, a great time spent together too 😊

What is a linear calendar?

A linear calendar is a type of calendar that lists events in chronological order. It is one of the easiest calendar concepts, that can be used already by kindergarten students. 

Linear calendars are generally easier to read than other types of calendars because there are no new rows for each week, so basically, the whole year can be seen in one long line.

It is important to stick it on the wall at eye level of your Little Ones, so that they can easily use it on a daily basis, mark important dates, and add new events, upcoming holidays, and any special occasion.

Like here:

Linear Calendar

We luckily had a wall that was long enough in her room, but I have heard that many fellow parents simply turn the calendars at the corner and continue to the next wall.

What are the benefits of a linear calendar for preschool kids?

Montessori-inspired linear calendars have so many great benefits both for kids and the whole family!

1. Liner calendars look great😁

  • I mean really, linear calendars are great wall decorations! You can surely find one that fits the style and design of your kids’ room, and it is such a unique type of decoration.

2. A linear calendar is a hands-on resource for your kids that helps to understand better the concept and passage of time

“When children arrive at an age of about three years, when they are able to speak and understand verbal instructions, the experimental conditions used are similar to those used in human adults. (…) However, at 3–5 years of age, children are still not always aware of the passage of time and its relevance. (…) However, when they repeatedly experience the duration of events, or when the duration of daily activities is in question, they can accurately judge the length of temporal intervals as early as 3–5 years.”

3. It is a great family activity to set up your linear calendar

  • When we prepared our first linear calendar with my Daughter we were actually stuck at home due to some flu she caught in kindergarten… so we had plenty of time 😅 She felt already pretty well and we were looking for some new kind of activity.
  • I designed and printed our calendar, and cut the sheets to get the 12 months in separate pieces. 
  • The best part came afterward: we had a great long chat about our loved ones, their birthdays, and other family celebrations and holidays. And marked them all on the calendar.

How can I make a linear calendar?

Making a linear calendar is super easy

Even it can be a bit time-consuming… But really nothing happens if you finish it the next day, so no worries.

As a first step, you can take 6 sheets of paper. 

Then you simply fold them into half to have one half-sheet for each month, and draw your own calendar! 

You can also use ready-to-print ones, like this linear calendar, that you can buy on Etsy:

Linear Calendar Montessori 2024

After having your monthly sheets, you can add important events, and mark birthdays, and holidays.

We laminated our one before putting it on the wall – it looked nicer and made the calendar more durable. 

Laminated linear calendars might also serve as a reusable tool, that you can use with dry erase markers or small laminated picture icons. It is absolutely up to you!

However, if you plan to use it for a longer period (more than one year), I would suggest not adding the names of the days to the top row, and just writing the number of the day.

This way, you can still see the days of the month, but you will miss the chance to also learn about the names and sequence of each day of the week. 

How to introduce time to children by using a Montessori-inspired linear calendar?

Kids can usually understand the sequence of events quite well even at a younger age, which is why various routines and such special calendars are helpful for them.

However the “concept of yesterday” might still be challenging for early learners!

You can start introducing a linear calendar as a kind of extension to their daily routine. Pictures and colors of each month can help them relate to weather, changes in nature, or various holidays.

I would suggest first preparing your calendar and just speaking about the events that are important for your family and finding their places on the linear calendar.

After putting it on the wall you can spend some time with the actual month, see what are the upcoming events, and even count how many nights to sleep till the first important one.

Use a marker (or a clip, or stickers) to “cross” the days that passed and find a few minutes to speak about changes (eg. if the weather is turning warmer as spring is coming), or some special events marked. Do not force these chats, just be ready to answer your little one’s curious questions. 😊

Takeaway

With access to a few simple materials, you can easily create your own linear calendar. We loved it and many of our friends use linear calendars with their preschool kids after we shared our positive experiences with them! So why not give it a try? 😊

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