Guest Author - Susan Thompson


Weather calendars are great learning tools for the preschool crowd. You can make your own pretty inexpensively and use it daily to teach your preschooler the days of the week, number recognition, months of the year, and weather conditions. Here is how to make your own inexpensively.

What you will need:

An inexpensive chalkboard –approx 2’ x 3’ (one that magnets will stick to)
Chalk or paint that will stick to the chalkboard
Blank Business Cards
Adhesive Business Card Magnets
Crayons, Markers, or Colored Pencils
Cut outs from magazines or catalogs with pictures of snow, rain, sun, clouds, raincoats, boots, hats, mittens, anything else weather related that you can think of.

How to make the board:
1. Using chalk or paint design the board using the following examples
Good Morning,
Today is blank, the blank day of blank, in the year blank.
The weather outside is blank.
When we go outside we might want to wear or carry (leave this open for many options).
Yesterday was blank and the weather was blank.
Tomorrow will be blank.

2. Now using the business cards and magnets construct your magnets to fill in the blanks. You will need two for each day of the week, one for each month of the year, one for the year itself, and one for each date of the month. To make the weather ones, draw pictures or use the magazine and catalog cutouts. Be creative, don’t forget one for windy days, one for days you might need sunscreen, you can also make magnets for holidays using drawings of pumpkins, hearts, cakes for family birthdays, flowers for spring, anything you or your kids can think of.

You will use the magnets to fill in the blanks as shown below.

Today is Friday, the 4th day of April, in the year 2008.
The weather outside is rainy.
When we go outside we might want to wear or carry a raincoat, umbrella, and boots.
Yesterday was Thursday and the weather was Sunny.
Tomorrow will be Saturday.

Have fun creating this board with your kids and every morning feel good that you are teaching them and having fun at the same time.