Hello friends! Today I'm excited to share with you an interactive calendar that we've created at our house. I like to think of this as a pre-school calendar since it has been created for the girls to use. You can certainly purchase similar calendars -- some even incorporate a weather station -- however most of the ones I've ever seen just simply don't match the color scheme in our home, and, let's face it, we like to make things!
I'm going to walk you through the making of the calendar with a whole lot of photos and for those who'd like to create one, I have a PDF available with instructions and a supply list. Before we get started I'll tell you that the first few photos are not fabulous. I worked on the calendar foundation at night and the work surface I was using does not have the best light so please excuse the quality of the images. Let's get going!
The night-time pics are over now...thanks for bearing with me!
The days of the week and the numbers are all removable! The plan is to add on a month each morning as the month goes on. And the reason for the days to be removable is that we could take these off for learning the order of the day -- Brooklyn (5) has this down pat, Britt (almost 3) sings along with the days of the week song and I am sure will know them soon enough.
Do take a closer look above and see if you notice anything about the 10, 11, 12.
Yes, that would be the letter "I" from the Morning Post Alphabet set. The number one has gone missing this past week -- fingers crossed that we eventually find it!
Rather than having blank squares, Brooklyn declared we should have something for each season. She wanted a snowman for winter, flowers for spring, a sun for summer, and a maple leaf (yes, she was specific about that...perhaps because her class just had a field trip to a maple sugar shack last week) for fall. Alas, I did not have all those so we went with the images above from the retired Sock Monkey stamp set.
The calenar is designed to be interactive and that meant Velcro. Erik and the girls went out this weekend and picked some up. I was thrilled that they found some mini Velcro dots that have one piece that is nearly invisible -- the dots is just above the "ies" in my Peonies and Paper Chains watermark above.
The Stampin' Up! Mini Muslin Bag is just the right size for the holding the numbers that are not up on the calendar. A little ribbon and some stamping dress it up. The bag is hanging from a Command Brand Decorating Clip -- it is small and clear and these are the ones you see being advertised for hanging Christmas lights.
No calendar would be complete without the months, however I did not have space right on the canvas I used. Hanging these from the ribbon with an O-ring works well and we can simply pop it off and flip over the month as needed. The month and day tags were created using MDS -- the months are stamp images and were printed directly onto Designer Series Paper whereas the days of the week were typed in as text and printed on Whisper White cardstock.
There you have it! A fabulous learning tool that looks equally nice in our home! Hoping the girls have a whole lot of fun with this next few years!
For instructions and a supply list, download the free PDF tutorial!
So, what do think of it? Please sure to leave a comment to let me know.
Wishing you a creative day! Thanks for stopping by!
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