August SmartBoard Calendar Math

I am very fortunate to have a SmartBoard in my classroom. I use it pretty much all day, every day. I do not have a bulletin board or wall devoted to calendar math in my classroom. Instead, I do my calendar math on my SmartBoard every morning. It’s a great way to start our day! I have created a new August SmartBoard calendar math file and I have posted it for FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Here’s a list of the skills covered:

1. Morning Message – I added a slide with handwriting lines at the beginning of my calendar math so I can add a morning message to my students.
2. August Song – This slide includes a fun August song that teaches students to spell “August.” I can’t remember where I found the songs to spell the months of the year. I think they are floating around the Internet in many places.
3. August Calendar – Students add the number for the date daily.
4. Days in School – We keep track of how many days we have been in school. Students tap on the gray boxes in order and the number is revealed.
5. Building Numbers – We tap the up arrow until we get to the number that represents how many days we’ve been in school. Then students build that number using place value blocks. We also decide if the number is even or odd.
6. Pattern of the Day – Students tap the dice and it tells them what sort of pattern to make (AB, ABC, etc.). They use the images to make a pattern.
7. Odd and Even songs (again, not sure where these originally came from)
8. Odd and Even chants and blocks – students add a block each day so they can see how even numbers have a partner and odd ones do not.
9. Telling time – students write the digital and analog times they are told. We start off with time to the hour, then half hour, and later we go over elapsed time.
10. Weather graph – we tap a gray box to mark our weather for the day.
11. Skip Counting – Students roll the dice. It tells us how to count (by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s) and we tap the numbers on the hundreds chart as we count.
12. Comparing Numbers – Students tap random number generators. They decide if the number is greater than, less than, or equal to the other number and choose the correct symbol and circle the correct phrase. If you tap the alligator, you might get a surprise! 🙂
13. Fact Families – I give the students 3 numbers and they write the addition and subtraction sentences for the fact family.
14. Add it Up – Students roll the two dice and add the numbers together.
15. Money – We use the number of how many days we’ve been in school and create that  number using coins. We write the money amount with a cent symbol and a dollar sign.
16. Money Poems – Students tap beside a coin and the money poem appears.
17. Quarter Song – We practice counting by 25’s by singing this song.
18. Super Problem – I write a “big” math problem for the students. We add numbers in the hundreds, thousands, even millions! We talk about how to add one column at a time.
19. Expanded Form – Students tap the random number generator and the arrow. It gives us a number in standard form. We write it in expanded form.
20. Birthday Graph – Each student adds a present to their birth month on their birthday.
21. Tooth Graph – Students add a tooth when they lose one to the correct month.

That’s a lot of skills! I do not do all 21 pages of the calendar math at the beginning of the year. I typically add new skills the week or two before I cover it during math time (pre-teaching). By the end of the year we are doing all of the pages every day. I do calendar math for about 30 minutes first thing in the morning. My students LOVE it! I pull sticks with the students names on them and everyone gets at least one turn.

Sometimes I find that the flash items (the dice, the random number generators) freeze up or go really slowly. When that happens we just improvise. The important thing is not to save the calendar file after doing calendar until you clear the pages first! Some pages will not need to be cleared – the days in school, August calendar, weather, birthday, and tooth graphs. Most will need to be. You can do this by simply right clicking on the slide from the page sorter (on the left side of your SmartNotebook software). Right click and choose “Clear page.”  You cannot use this option on the Pattern of the Day page. If you do, it will also delete the boxes the pictures go into. Instead, drag each image out and then delete it. Make sure you hit reset on the skip counting page. The dice will automatically reset each day. The random number generators are set to go from 1 – 120 in most cases. This range can be changed if necessary.

Please note that this calendar math was created in SmartNotebook software for use with a SmartBoard. SmartBoards are created by Smart Technologies and all SmartBoard files are not compatible with all types of interactive whiteboards. I cannot create this for other types of interative white boards or for use with PowerPoint.

The calendar is in a ZIP file. If you have trouble opening the SmartNotebook file after unzipping, try renaming the file “augustcalendar.notebook”

To get a copy of the August calendar math, click here to download for FREE from Teachers Pay Teachers.