An Easy (and Inexpensive) Parent Gift

When I was in elementary school, I loved making gifts for my parents for Christmas.  Forget the holiday party, I looked forward to craft day!  We got to put our love and heart into creating a present that I could put under the tree on Christmas Eve and watch my parents open in the morning.  I always felt so proud!

One gift that always sticks out in my mind, is a calendar that I created for my family.  My teacher would draw out a yearly calendar, one page per month.  Remember, this was before the days of computers (I feel old saying that!).

Here’s how it worked.  It looked like a regular calendar that you would hang on the wall or on the fridge.  The bottom portion was the days of the month and the top was a hand-drawn portion by me.  Each picture was related to that month in some way.  For example, in December I drew a Christmas tree with presents.

I remember my parents loving these calendars, so I wanted to recreate them for my students.  Each month comes with a drawing and a writing prompt.  You could use the writing portion for older students.  There are also blank pages if you want your students to come up with their own idea for a drawing.

All the pages are in black and white, so you won’t use a lot of ink when printing them.  It also gives your students the option to color in the pictures as well.

Also included in the set is an undated calendar, if you prefer that option.  You could even have the students fill in the dates as a lesson in how a calendar works!

There is a seasonal option, as well, since not every family celebrates the same holidays.

I put the calendars together with my binding machine (love this one!).  However, you could also staple the pages, use book rings or even yarn/string to put the calendar together.  

The calendar is updated each year, so you will be able to re-download each year for free!  This means you can use it every year as parent gifts without spending more money!