Activity

How to support learning at school with calendar systems

Part 4 in our 4-part series on CVI-friendly calendar systems. How to support learning opportunities across the school day with a calendar system.

Henry sits in a classroom and shows his tactile calendar system

Calendar systems are an integral part of the school day, helping the student with CVI to anticipate, preview, and find meaning in activities. They are also crucial for teaching and reinforcing concepts, academic subjects, and elements of the Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC).

Sharon Stelzer, lead teacher in the Perkins Deafblind Program, calls the calendar system “one of the best tools for teaching… because I can teach language arts, I can teach reading. I can teach math; I can teach anything through that tool.”

We interviewed vision educators about how to incorporate calendar systems throughout the school day and support a range of subjects. Here are some of their examples.

Starting the day

Sharon: “Depending on the child, I would either have the system set up or I would have the child help me set up the system for the day.” 

For a young child, the first thing on the agenda may be morning circle, followed by a snack and art. Older students may start with a class meeting, followed by academics, therapy sessions, and PE. Each activity or subject has a place on the calendar system.

Sara Espanet, Teacher, Perkins Deafblind Program: “Every day when the students come in, they sit down at their desk, and we put together their daily schedule. A lot of our students’ schedules are broken down into half hour increments. So, they’ll put together all their activities for the day, and for each student that looks different.

“We also discuss calendar concepts at morning meetings. This is when we talk about today, tomorrow, yesterday. We discuss concepts of time such as the month and what holiday might be coming up, what activities might be coming up. And then we talk about what classes we have that day.”

The student may start with an anticipation calendar, which involves just two objects, and then move to a calendar covering the span of a morning or day.  

Small swim shorts and a squishy toy are examples of embedded tactile symbols for swim and OT.
Embedded tactile symbols. Photos represent swim and OT.

Making smooth transitions

The students and teacher review the calendar system every time there is an upcoming transition, no matter the complexity of the calendar or the day.

Sara: “So at every transition, we discuss that this activity is finished, and this is the next one that is starting.

“A calendar system is a really great way to inform them of any changes in their day, of any disruptions that may be happening to their routine, instead of just springing it on them. If they’re not going to have OT, we can tell them at 9:00 when they start that today, ‘Shucks! OT isn’t happening.’

“We learn things incidentally by noticing that [the OT] is out today, but they might not be able to make those connections. Giving them that information puts them at ease.”

When the activity is over, the student signifies this by putting the object in a finished bin, covering or removing the photo from a schedule board, or crossing an item off a list, for example. This provides a sense of finality and accomplishment. It’s a cue that time is moving on and that the student needs to prepare for the next thing.

Wrapping up 

A calendar system provides closure at the end of the day. It’s also a chance to strengthen the student’s memory by reviewing what happened and to preview the transition to home or what to expect at school tomorrow.

Sara: “At the very end of the day, [my students] do their daybook, a daily journal to discuss what happened that day. And we revisit those calendar concepts from their schedule and morning meeting. They put the date, if it’s appropriate, and then [discuss things like] ‘What was your favorite class? Who did you have lunch with?’ Some of those questions reinforce the schedule, so they really have a lot of opportunities to use these calendar systems throughout the day.”

Connections to other subject areas

Literacy

Like reading, calendar systems are set up in sequential order. In English we read left to right, top to bottom. A calendar can teach many of these foundational concepts before a student ever learns to read.

Megan Connaughton, Teacher, Perkins Preschool Deafblind Program: “It’s a great pre-literacy skill. So, moving left to right; first, second, third; beginning, middle, end; depending on how advanced their calendar system is.”

Calendars also give students the chance to connect symbols with meaning.

Sharon: “Letters are symbolic. It’s really arbitrary, right? Somebody came up with the names of all our letters, they came up with the sounds of the letters. 

“It’s the same for our calendar system. It’s the beginning of all that symbolic language. When you’re reading an object, you’re understanding that symbol. For example, this bottle means drink. When you put those letters together, W – A – T – E – R for water, the combination of those letters mean water, that clear liquid that we drink, the thing that falls down from the sky.” 

Ilse: We can use calendar systems “to solidify their vocabulary, whether they are using 3D objects, words, or whatever the case may be. They understand that a symbol, picture, or word has meaning. They know what will happen because they can use the symbol and make the connection. It’s really the beginning tool for literacy. Left to right, top to bottom, symbolic language, putting two objects together to make a simple sentence. That is literacy.”

Rachel’s Parent case study

Henry uses a digital and tactile purple letter H outlined with yellow with his calendar system.

For Henry, he’s used schedule icons to craft sentences. He has a tactile “Henry” icon, so he’ll order Henry, laundry, and playground. Then his TVI asks him to read his sentence.

He’ll say something like: “Henry first does laundry then goes to the playground.” It’s showing him that symbols have meaning and can be read and put together in a sentence. He’s been working on matching words to his symbols and recognizing his calendar icons in 2D. These are highly familiar for Henry, so they can be leveraged in a lot of ways.

Going back to that sentence earlier… Henry’s now able to read the word “Henry” and “laundry,” but still uses the playground icon. He works on sequencing his icons, adding activities and taking some away, matching schedule icons to the time. For example, OT is at 9 am. There are a lot of ways to incorporate these highly familiar calendar icons into learning.

Math

Megan: “We might eventually move on to a concept of time, even if it’s not traditional ‘at 9:00 we do this, at 9:30 we do that.’ It might just be ‘number one, number two’ or ‘first, second, third.’ When we’re putting objects in a slot, “that’s like filling something on a jig, which is a pre-counting skill.”

Sara: “For math, a calendar system discusses the concept of time, so for some of our students, their calendar system might be broken up into half-hour increments of time, so they’re learning 9:30 comes after 9:00.

“They’re also working on first, second, and third. We’re talking about sequencing and we’re talking about temporal words. We’re talking about all those early time management skills for our students.”

Introducing new concepts or subjects

Sara: “If a student’s using partial objects and we’re going to introduce a new activity to add to that calendar, we might start off by using whole objects and having an experience with those objects before we place it on the calendar. 

“If there’s a new activity that’s being added to our calendar system, we can create a story about it, we can create a social story, we can create vocabulary lessons around it, so we try and make it as inclusive as possible to give them the opportunities for direct instruction before adding it to their calendar system.”

Connect with ECC: Independent living skills

Sara: “It teaches responsibility for some of our older kids so they’re responsible for managing their schedule as they get older.” 

Say they have to get to the student store at 10:00. “They know that they have to give themselves enough time to head over to the student store across campus. So, we’re teaching them some responsibility and self-advocacy as well.”

Some students absorb “larger concepts, thinking about the month,” for example. “When we’re going on a field trip, [we think about] when we need to do certain activities like go shopping to get snacks. 

‘We need to go this week and then we’ll go again and three more weeks, when is that?’

“For some of our kids, it’s a daily thing where we can go into a recreation and leisure activity, and they might have a smaller schedule within the activity. We talk about classroom chores a lot too.”

Ilse, Acting Director of the CVI Center and a TVI and Deafblind specialist: “Over time it gives students a chance to build their own schedule when appropriate. It gives them autonomy to pick something because they know what it means.”

Connect with ECC: Social interaction skills

Sara: “It’s just a really nice social interaction for our students. At morning meetings, they can discuss their calendar systems, their schedules for the day, but also, it’s a nice exchange between staff and students…preparing them for what’s going to happen.”

The students benefit when they can “talk about their schedules and compare who has what [class]. For some of our kids who were a little bit more advanced with their calendar systems, they might be able to say that ‘Oh, you have PE today, I had that yesterday, or I have that tomorrow.’”

Looking for more about CVI-friendly calendar systems?

Check out the previous articles in this series:

Additional resources

Jessica Marquardt is a CVI mom to Grace, the creator of Kaleidoscope: The CVI Podcast, and works in marketing and communications for a major software company. Jessica is a fierce CVI advocate, a life-long learner of CVI and the brain, and undeniably knows that storytelling has the power to change the world for individuals with CVI.  

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