Calendar fun

Today I’ve got a short post for you. It’s an idea that I’ve been doing for a year or so for Chace (my little five-year-old). 

Chace loves knowing how his week is going to look. He likes to know if he’s going to daycare, has a sports activity or a birthday party. He often looks ahead and will count the days to something he’s looking forward to. It also helps Chef Kev and I get him out of the house in a timely manor (kind of an oxymoron with a five-year-old) if he knows how his day is going to look. 

Since Chace isn’t quite reading yet, I found that little pictorial icons work the best. If I were to only write on his calendar then he’d constantly be asking what everything says. This way gives him the freedom to review it on his own. Which he does a lot.

The perfect spot for his calendar is in the little nook where he has breakfast. That way he can review what is in store for the upcoming day!

To make the stickers I simply purchased a package of Avery labels. I used Avery 02102. They are small 3/4″ round labels. 

I googled the things I wanted to make stickers for – skating, tennis etc. and downloaded some simple icons to represent each one. Here is a sampling of what I did – from left to right: stars and happy faces (special one-off events), robot carrying a gift (birthday party), ice skates (skating lessons), tennis ball (tennis lessons), little guy with a water dingy (swimming lessons), little house (cabin trip), airplane (flying on an airplane/vacation), soccer ball (soccer game), blue soccer ball – I just used a highlighter to colour those (soccer practice).

To print each one in the correct spot, I downloaded an Avery label template. I got mine for my design program (Adobe Indesign) but you can get them for Microsoft Word and other programs. Once I had my digital layout done, I simply printed them on my home computer. If you do this at home you will need a manual feed tray as the label stock is smaller than a regular size sheet of paper.

Each month I load up Chace’s calendar full of events!

The sticker not explained above that you see a bunch of (little guy with the red hat holding some art supplies) is Chace’s sticker to symbolize a daycare day. 

Chace takes pride in crossing each day off as it passes. 

How about you? Do you have a calendar for your kids or any neat ways of keeping the family organized? Does your kid tap his foot impatiently and point at the calendar if you forget to get his stickers up by the first of each month? No? Okay, just mine then. 

I’ve created a calendar monster but luckily he is kept under control with ice cream.