Contained Chaos: Practical Homemade Calendar

School has started and your little one’s calendar is filling up quickly. It’s difficult enough to keep all the days straight yourself, but how do you think your toddler feels? They can’t make any sense of all those scribbles you jot down on the family calendar! Alas, the age old child calendar must make its premier. Yet, if your family is in the city, you know as well as any that those giant kids calendars are SO impractical. Every inch is precious and everything needs a place. This is why I decided to convert the top of Abby’s art project box (something that was necessary and already had a designated, easily accessible, and visible place in her School Corner) into a calendar.

Supplies

• Box cover (or any other practical object that you can convert)
• Paper
• Tape
• Crayons, Markers, etc
• Ruler
• Stickers

Directions

Start by covering the box cover in your paper. I found it easiest to simply wrap it like I would if I were wrapping a present. This keeps the paper neat and snug around the cover.

Now work on making your columns with the ruler. The typical month will require five rows, plus one row for the days of the week, which makes 6 rows in total. And, in case you’re having a mind blank, you need 7 columns (one for each day of the week). I found it easiest to draw the lines in pencil first (barring mistakes) and then draw them with a marker. The date numbers and the days of the week are also in marker to make them stand out.

Once you have your outline, feel free to call the little ones over to help color the boxes in. You can let them go crazy with color, or just stick to a solid color to make a unified look. We went with pink and green as our main colors. However, we’ll probably mix this up for future months (I’m thinking the classic black and orange for October, but we’ll see).

Once everything is colored in, fill the calendar in with symbols that the little ones will understand. Abby helped me put apples on the days she has school, ballet slippers on the days she has dance class, and G’s on the days that her Grandma is watching her. We used a little star to designate today and she will be able to move it from day to day so she can keep track of where we are in the calendar.

The best part? We were able to place the box cover back ontop of the box and slide it into its easily accessible spot in her school corner after we were done making it. I love that this calendar doesn’t take up any extra room or create a cluttered mess on the walls in her play area. So efficient and practical!