Mommy Monday: magnetic calendar for preschoolers DIY

My girls started preschool in September, and they have been loving it! One of the big changes I have seen is that they are more aware of approaching holidays and other events now. In the past, I never talked to them about anything more than a week in advance (except during Advent), and usually no more than a day in advance, to avoid the constant questions thereafter of "is it today?". Now that they are able to understand the passing of time better and look ahead to events farther in the future, I have updated their magnetic calendar and chore chart to include a monthly calendar!

I have had the weekly calendar, which has the main things they will do that day- when they eat and sleep, go on outings, go to school, to to Dad's house etc- shown with pictures and icons, and the chore chart, with pictures for some of the basic chores they each do, on this magnet board for about 2 years now, and it has been fantastic. One of my daughters has a very difficult time adjusting to unexpected events, so being able to anticipate what will happen that day has made a huge difference for her especially. If you want to read more about how I made it and how we use it, you can catch up on my previous blog post from many moons ago by clicking on the picture below:

The space below the chore chart, though, has been morphing to meet the girls' changing needs as they get older. Most recently, I had a simple visual showing the routine things that the girls needed to do each morning and night to help them remember their new routines as we started school. You can read about that, and download the visual I used for free, in this post:

But enough backstory... so my latest update! 

I took down the morning/night routines visual because the girls know what to do now and have not been referring to it for a few weeks. In its place, I put up a monthly calendar:

I printed out the current month from my blank 2015 calendar, which you can download for free here and will be updated for 2016 very soon. I used some of the same supplies I use to decorate my own monthly calendars in my planner to decorate theirs, and just put in the big picture events that I thought would be helpful for them to look ahead to: days when they don't have school, holidays (Thanksgiving, in this case, which is a 2-day celebration for them since they will have one with each parent), and yep, moving to their new house (more on that another day...)! I stuck the calendar onto the magnet board with a little double-sided tape and used another one of the magnets I had on hand (the same kind I have to track the current day on the weekly calendar) to track the current day.

I have a lot of fun ideas for ways to make each month's calendar fun and helpful for the girls- I might keep printing the blank calendars and have them decorate it themselves with their own stickers, or I might add in some icons or clip art to the holidays and other big days before printing- but I wanted to have something set up for the beginning of the new month to get them used to using it so this was the best way to get started. I also decided to write out the days rather than use pictures because they are starting to sound out letters and I thought this would be a great way to get them to recognize some new words. I color-coded each item (so all the "no school" days are in green, etc) to help them remember what the words say.

I'm possibly a little too excited by this simple monthly calendar. I think it's because it is a sign that the girls are growing up! Thinking back on how their calendar has evolved over the last few years is making me nostalgic and proud. What are some things that have made you realize how much your kids have grown recently? I'd love to hear them in the comments below :)