Important {and FUN!} Calendar Dates for Teachers to Remember ·

Every year, it never fails, I get so busy in the thick of teaching that I forget about important school year dates. Things I want to educate my students on and also just fun ways I want to celebrate little days at school. Every year I forget about them and then it’s the day of and I am the one teacher in my hallway NOT doing something fun with their kids!

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Now I’m not writing this blog post because I want to do more fun stuff with my kids. But instead, I want to be more intentional with how I incorporate important dates and holidays with my curriculum so that my students are getting knowledge about those events, but also having fun.

How to Plan for Important Dates

Each summer I make my own personal YAG (Year at a Glance). It is a chart of dates and subjects. I use our district’s curriculum and my ideas to make a plan for the upcoming year.

This summer is no different. I made my YAG but before I wrote any activities down, I listed important dates in the fourth column. You can check out how to make your own Year at a Glance or Curriculum Map here.

Important {and FUN!} Dates in the Elementary Classroom

Once I had all the holidays and important dates written out, I wrote out the units from my district. Then I listed ideas from the units I got from Amy Lemons and Hope King’s TPT stores. (I went to a conference they put on this summer and I fell in love with everything they were doing!)

Using a YAG is super helpful to me when I plan out units and do my weekly lesson plans. Now that I have the dates in there as well, I will be able to be more creative and intentional in my planning!!!

Important Dates in the Elementary Classroom

So! What are the important dates? I gathered some of my favorites and put them in a list.

Click on the printable below to get the downloadable PDF of important dates straight to your inbox. Hang it up at your desk, put it in your planner, copy the dates into your calendar. It doesn’t matter! Just be sure to find ways to incorporate the curriculum with the important {and FUN!} dates throughout the year!

Screenshot of the resource with important dates throughout the school year.

Screenshot of the resource with the important dates throughout the school year.

Some dates on the list are kind of personal to the school I taught in. But I wanted to include them on there because they make for fun dress-up days.

Talk Like a Pirate Day!

This one is always a blast. Teachers and students dress up as pirates. The teachers compete for the best-dressed team…We’ve yet to win that. But maybe one day!

Also, I’ve been wearing the exact same pirate outfit for the last five years…I’m not very creative.

Plaidurday

I have to thank our librarian for finding fun and crazy days to celebrate. On this day everyone dresses up in their finest plaid gear. Usually, it takes a lot of google image searches to show the kids what plaid is.

Storybook Character Day

This is how we celebrate Halloween without it getting out of hand. Each student gets to dress up as a character from a book. Here is our team dressed up as different characters from the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” series.

Check out my upside-down book, hah!

Holidays are fun to celebrate. I am especially looking forward to planning research units around MLK Jr’s birthday and Women’s History Month!

Don’t forget to download the Important Dates printable so you can display it in your classroom.

What are the fun holidays (or random days) you celebrate at your school? Let me know in the comments below!

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