One family calendar for every school date

School dates arrive from everywhere. The year calendar came in August, the field trip notice came home in a backpack, the club schedule is in an email, and the early dismissal was mentioned at pickup. At the start of each month, take ten minutes to gather every school date in one place, put it on one calendar the whole family can see, and walk your child through it.

Collect the dates on the first of the month

Pick a fixed time, such as the first Sunday evening of the month, and give it ten minutes. Sit down with the school's year calendar and anything new the school has sent since last month.

Go through these categories one at a time, so nothing slips past:

• Days off. Holidays, teacher planning days, breaks.
• Short days. Early dismissals and late starts. Write the new start or end time on the day.
• Field trips. The date, the departure time, and whether your child needs a packed lunch or different clothes.
• Events. Performances, open mornings, family evenings, picture day.
• Conferences. The week they run and, once you book, your own slot.
• Deadlines. Permission slips, forms, payments, re-enrollment.
• Club days. Every meeting your child is signed up for, and the dates the club skips.

Then add your own family dates for the month: a grandparent visiting, a dentist appointment, a weekend away. A school date and a family date on the same day is the clash you want to find at the start of the month.

Choose one calendar and make it the only one

Families that keep two calendars usually check the wrong one. Decide where the month lives and use only that place.

A paper calendar on the kitchen wall or the fridge works well for young children, because they can see it and touch it. A shared calendar on your phones works well for the adults. Plenty of families use both: the phone calendar for times and details, and a printed month on the wall for the child.

If you keep a wall calendar, make it easy to read at a glance:

• Use one color for no-school days and another for short days.
• Draw a small picture next to each school event. A bus for a field trip, a musical note for a concert, a leaf for garden club.
• Write pickup times in large numbers on short days.
• Mark deadlines on the day before they're due, so you have a day to finish the form.

Keep the picture code the same from month to month. Your child will start reading the calendar by the pictures long before they can read the words.

Walk your child through the month

Montessori classrooms help children understand time through daily routines and the calendar work they do in the classroom. You can do the same at home with your month.

On the evening you fill in the calendar, spend a few minutes with your child in front of it. Point to today. Count the days to the next event together. Ask them to find the next day with no school.

Some things you can say:

• "This is the day you go on the farm trip. How many sleeps until then?"
• "On this day school ends after lunch. Who do you think picks you up?"
• "Garden club is every Wednesday. Can you find all the Wednesdays?"

Each morning, let your child cross off yesterday or move a clip to today. A four-year-old who can see that the concert is three squares away asks "Is it today?" far less often.

Keep it current between the first-of-the-month sessions

New dates will come in during the month. Add each one the day you hear about it, in the same place, with the same colors and pictures. If the school changes a date, cross out the old one clearly so nobody follows it.

At the end of the month, glance back before you take the page down. Did you miss anything? Did a short day catch you out? Add that kind of date to your checklist for next month.

If your child's school uses FutureNerds, the school calendar is already in the app, and the Our month sheet in Family Tools prints school dates and your family's dates on one page. You choose which kinds of school dates to show, such as days off, field trips or conferences, and add your own family dates before you print it for the wall.