Calendar Concepts and Organizing Data
Type of Submission:

This idea is a submission for:
X A curriculum idea
__Cool things to do
__A special issue
Age group for whom this activity is appropriate:
3-5 year olds
 
Brief description of activity:
- Working with calendar concepts
- Learning to collect and organize data
What I did to set this up and how I followed through:
I sent a simple form home to get information about dates that were important to families (for example, Easter or Ramadan)
Materials used:
Paper, software for calendar program (for example, KidDesk)

What the children had to do and what I wanted them to learn:
  • Worked with each child individually on the computer calendar program to enter his or her birthday and special days.
  • In entering the data, the kids had to recognize the number of the date.
  • This activity also gave the kids experience with the order of the months.
  • They learned to use the computer to record and organize information.
  • We printed out the individual calendar months and could see how many birthdays were in each month. We hung these in our meeting area.
Images of the Activity:
 
Background: How I got the idea:
The kids always love when it’s their birthday and they get very excited, waiting for that day. I have a daily meeting with the class in which we talk about what day it is, what month, etc. I also think it’s important for them to begin thinking about the computer as a tool for recording and organizing information. This let me put two ideas together – using the computer to organize calendar information.
 
Analysis: How the kids and/or parents responded:

The kids really loved checking the class calendar – both on the wall and on the computer – to see whose birthday was coming next. This seemed to give more excitement to our daily routine about the calendar. Sometimes we had our morning meeting gathered around the computer calendar to put in additional information, like a field trip. The parents also liked that the kids were "researchers." They liked sharing information about their families, not just the children’s birthdays. I think it made a nice connection between home and school and highlighted the cultural diversity in our classroom.

 
Extension

To follow up, we made a graph showing how many birthdays occurred in each month.You could also extend this concept by using the computer calendar to record information about the daily weather.
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Adult Participation
How do I make sure children get
adult help when playing with the computer?
 Having Conversations
How can I make computer activities part of the conversation in the classroom?
 Curriculum Extension
How can I extend computer activities into the rest of the classroom program?
 Computer Placement
How can I integrate the computer
into the space and materials
available in the classroom?
 Sharing Creations
How can I share children’s computer work with others?
 Sharing Discoveries
How can I help children share their computer discoveries with each other?
 Taking Turns
What are some strategies for taking turns when using the computer?