Teaching Tuesday: COUNTING down to Christmas

I love using the calendar to teach basic skills.  It is full of teaching opportunities.  For the month of December I have added something to our "Calendar Time".  It is a Christmas tree that needs decoration.  Each day we will find the number of the date and cover it with an ornament.  This will reinforce what we are working on during our math lessons and be a fun way to count down to Christmas.  To make this countdown I used the free print out here.  I printed it on card stock so it would hold up throughout the month (remember a 4 and 2 year old will be the ones using it).  Then I glued the Christmas Tree onto red construction paper.  Then I punched out the circles using a circle punch.  If you don't have a circle punch you could cut them by hand.  I placed them in a baggie.  I then hung the tree and circles next to our calendar.  You can find a similar idea here that uses sight words and stars. Check back next Tuesday for more ideas on how to use the calendar to teach important math and language skills.