Calendar Time

     Calendar time. It is one of the most wide spread popular activities you will find in a daycare/pre-k setting. It is also one of the most hot topic issues, believe it or not, among early childhood educators. I think there are pros and cons to the activity myself, but not enough cons to completely ignore it with my kid. The beauty of staying at home and doing this on my own with him is that with one child he can get the most out of it without having to sit still and wonder when his turn to hold the flag for the pledge is (I know, I know, another thing not everyone is happy about. I will touch on this later), or put the number on the calendar, and you get the picture. He gets to do it all if he wants or none of it too. I let him take the lead on those things.
     Ok ok, so why did I say it is a hot topic? Well because there are people who LOVE calendar time, and people who hate it so much they are wanting to get rid of it from schools altogether. There are things about it I am not a fan of. Time, for one, is a very hard concept for young ones to comprehend. Those of you with toddlers know what I mean when I say that yesterday has just as much of a meaning to them timewise as tomorrow does. Yesterday could mean anything that happened before they woke up this morning and tomorrow basically means they know they still have to wait for something to come because today they were told, not today. You get the picture I hope. Does that mean I ignore the days of the week song with my son? No, I do not. He loves songs. He is even picky each day which version of the days of the week song we will sing. It is his favorite part of when we do calendar time. I know to him those days do not have much meaning yet, but it does not mean I will miss out on him belting out those days because well, it is adorable. I do not really emphasise today, yesterday, and tomorrow with him because I know for an almost 3 yr old it makes not much since to him. I just fill those up myself.
     What I do actually like about calendar time is it does give us a routine to start our day with. It also does help him have another part of the day to work on his counting and as he gets a little older, some squencing too.
     I mentioned it earlier, and yes, my son and I do practice the Pledge of Allegience right after we say thank you to God for our day and the Angel of God prayer. I bet you are wondering why would I be so bappy about the Pledge and so kind of blah about the concept of time? Yes, I know the Pledge is also very difficult for his age to understand, but if I am being honest it comes from my very proud and patriotic parents as well as because of the family members I love who are serving in the military right now. One of my nephews is in boot camp right now with a couple weeks left. I was taught to do the Pledge by my parents way before I remember even being taught to say it. It is ingrained. I want my child to learn to be respectful and feel grateful for being a citizen of this country just as my parents taught me.
    Doing calendar time, as I said, is controversial. What do you like/dislike about it? How do you adapt it to fit your child's learning style or do you ignore completely? Shoot me a comment, preferably keep it respectful, but I like hearing yall's thoughts.