It's "Time" Again for the Handmade Calendars

Pardon the pun!

When I first started having children make handmade calendars in 2016, using blank scrapbooking calendars, we used Karen Foster Design. And they were wonderful!

After many years, those calendars stopped being made, so we switched to Accent Design Paper Accents. And now I just went to buy our yearly batch of blank calendars, and those weren't available either! So I hopped on eBay and got 15 blank calendars from Stampin' Up! and Pixie Press.

Making handmade calendars is a well-loved tradition here, so don't forget to be surprised when your child presents you with one as a holiday gift!

Here's an excerpt from my Calendars & Clocks webpage, and check out the rest of the page if you're curious about what else we will cover in this block.

ALL of the children in the school will begin with calendars, so that they can all do their artwork, but when we get to reading an analog clock the older children will focus in-depth on that skill and the younger children will just practice reading and writing Roman Numerals (aka Quality of Numbers).

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The Calendar Project

One of my favorite things to do! You can do a seasonal art calendar starting in first grade, if you want your child to have lots of practice writing numbers.

Making a Calendar Together
2021 calendar art

Calendar Making for Third Grade
planning notes for 2019 calendar art

Creating a Calendar / Keepsake Art Project
planning notes for 2017 calendar art

Notes on Homemade Calendar Activity
2017 calendar art

I've also done two other calendars, both more scientific. These involved measurement because we were creating a calendar using a scale.

One was a scale of time, with each day on the calendar being approximately 12.5 million years. The art month by month showed how life on Earth evolved from its initial formation to the present day. A very good project for 4th grade, if you do the Timeline of Life as a main lesson block.

• Photos from the Timeline of Life Calendar
  "Timeline of Life" 2020 calendar art
• Rubber Stamps for the Timeline of Life Calendar

The other was a scale of depth, and the art month by month showed what lives in the layers of the ocean as you go from the surface to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench. This could work for any grade, as kids are fascinated by the ocean and it's an easy scale to calculate.

As it turns out, the deepest part of the ocean -- the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench -- is believed to be 36,070 feet. With 12 months and each piece of art being 12 inches tall, we will have 144 inches of height. The math is easy; our scale will be 1 inch = 250 feet.

• "Creep into the Deep"
  detailed notes for calendar planning are at the bottom of the page
• "Creep into the Deep" Expo / Museum Walk
  "Creep into the Deep" 2018 calendar art

These are more content-heavy instead of just the seasonal art, but they are really fun to do!

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