DIY Calendar Pocket Chart

I converted my Spanish teaching corner to a Sammy teaching corner in the rec room. I have a door with 3 "magic wall" sections (used to have them upstairs) which are really strong magnetic wipe off poster boards. I want to have Calendar time with him and I recently moved all the educational type toys (and pretty much all the toys) to the shelving in the back of the basement right behind that door. So I can do calendar time, read books, pull out one or two of those toys to do with him, do a letter of the week, etc. He EATS that stuff up. And although he has taken longer to get to this point, he now does know things like his colors, and is finally sponging all that up. Also, I thought it would be fun in the summer to let Jimmy and Barbara be "guest teachers" for calendar time with him. I also have a bunch of magnetic storytelling sets I made for teaching Spanish. Right now his favorite book is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? so he really enjoys the magnet set to reenact that story. I chose well known childrens' stories for the Spanish sets, so that children would already be familiar with the story in English and thus transition well to the retelling in Spanish, so I have stories like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Caps for Sale, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie- that also work super well for teaching preschool concepts.

When I used to teach K5 I would sew my own pocket charts and storage pockets to go on the backs of chairs, so I am all about sewing things with clear vinyl. I almost ran to the Learning Shop this morning to buy a calendar set, but then decided I should just have a go at it myself since I have so many materials on hand. It only took me about a half hour, and I have this great pocket calendar now! I actually just sewed through a wipe off posterboard calendar I already had, sandwiching it between some green fabric and strips of clear vinyl. First I sewed the poster onto the green. Then I sewed the clear strips across, and sewed down the vertical lines so now each calendar square has a clear pocket. Hemmed the edges of the greeen square, I cut out some paper apples, and voila! It hangs nicely with my 2 magnetic hooks. If you can sew a straight line, you can sew this. Actually, I didn't sew my lines all that straight, nor did I cut the vinyl very straight, but it still turned out pretty well. Gotta love free!! I think Sammy's going to LOVE it!