Each morning, we begin our day by meeting on the carpet for a morning routine that helps us build number sense in fun and meaningful ways. We use our calendar as a tool for exploring patterns, practicing math skills, and building our classroom community. When we look at the monthly calendar, we also spend time talking about the days of the week and becoming familiar with how a calendar works. Students notice patterns, keep track of upcoming events, and make connections between the calendar and their daily lives.
After reviewing the monthly calendar, we look over our schedule for the day. Reviewing a daily schedule each morning with young students is beneficial because it provides a sense of security and predictability. It supports smoother transitions by preparing students for what comes next and builds independence as children begin to anticipate materials and routines on their own.
As we move through the month, students practice recognizing and writing ordinal numbers to describe how many days of school we’ve had. This number serves as our “number of the day” for calendar math. We record the number of days in school using tally marks, which gives students repeated practice grouping numbers into sets of five and skip counting by fives. We also explore place value using Digi-Blocks to organize tens and ones. This hands-on model helps students clearly see how numbers build and grow.
To add another real-world connection, we represent the number of days in school using coins, exchanging pennies for nickels, dimes, and quarters as we reach new milestones. Students love singing our coin song together: “A penny’s worth one, a nickel’s worth five, a dime is worth ten and a quarter 25!” complete with hand motions and a silly voice for the second verse!
To start our day on a positive note, we finish with a cheerful good morning song some of us learned from Mrs. Michaliszyn, a former Summit EL teacher who some of the students had a few years back!
Our morning routine helps us start our day off right. Students take turns leading the group, pointing out patterns, asking questions, and encouraging one another. The routine builds confidence, reinforces important math skills, and shows students that math is something we use every single day. Best of all, the students enjoy being active participants in their learning, and they never let me forget if we skip calendar time!
