How Many Days Are Left In The Month Paper Chain

19 pages.
This is one of my most helpful classroom tools. You can read, save, or print this.

• Young children have a difficult time grasping calendar concepts especially the concept of time. My students were forever asking: "When is the party, fieldtrip, or other special day that they are looking forward to; so I designed a calendar extension called our Monthly Paper Chain.
• I count how many days in the month and make a color patterned paper chain. Since we are learning an ABAB or ABC pattern first, for September I start with an ABC pattern and do red, yellow and green because of the 3 colors of apples that we will also be studying for science.
• Every day we're in school we take away (subtract) a paper chain. We rip off the weekend ones too. ( My students love tearing off the chains so that's why I included Saturday and Sunday.)
• We count forwards and backwards, (in English and Spanish) identify the pattern, and  colors (in English and Spanish), look for any paper chains that have stickers on them that denote a special day that we are looking forward to and then count how many more days 'til we get to wear our costumes, have a special visitor, or get to go on a fieldtrip, have our pictures taken or whatever.
• Besides all of the great math extensions, the paper chain also acts as a cute decoration. I've included the little black board that you can run off and laminate and a page of monthly icons that you can change if you want to add a piece of  Velcro to the back.