Last year I used VistaPrint to make calendars as Christmas gifts. They start free though you have to pay $4.50 to download your photos. It's still quite a deal. I dressed up the photos using Windows Paint first and they came out awesome. Here's some of the pages I made before loading them to VistaPrint. Clickable thumbnails: Here is a link that might be useful: VistaPrint Calendars

Karen, welcome to the group. jcs7, I'm a teacher, too and could always tell the kids who are indepdent at home. I still have 3 in elementary school, so all papers in the backpacks go on the kitchen table when they get home. Field trip/permission slips are put aside on my control journal so I deal with them after dinner. Everything else is either an "atta boy" and in the trash, something for our art corner or they can put it up in their room with a push pin. Homework is back in the backpack when finished. We have a funky hallway area and that has become where we post the artwork. It has a bookshelf that the top is reserved for those clay and papermache projects. My calendar is made by More Time for Moms. It is 16 month calendar so I can write an entire year's events as soon I get the calendar for school, scouts, etc. and then I don't have to keep the schedules. The boxes have enough room that I can put down "field trip/need sack lunch" and still have other events listed. There is a packet at the back if I really need to keep something. I also keep a hanging file for each kid in the same place I keep my medical, household type stuff. If it's something I think I may need in the future then I put it there and I purge that stuff every fall. Part of keeping this stuff in control is to learn that every paper is not a keeper. I put away beginning of the year examples and then another one at the end of the year because it's nice to see the growth. Otherwise, we really don't keep daily stuff. If they do want to keep it, their bedroom is a good spot and if it becomes too much, they have to decide what goes and what stays. I have to say that "out of view" doesn't work for our family. When we remodeled this house the contractor wanted to put up a wall next to the fridge so you wouldn't see the fridge. It was so ingrained in having our calendar on the side of that fridge there was no way I could have a wall there and no calendar. With the calendar out and easy to get to, all six of us check it constantly. We know now-if it's not on the calendar-it isn't going to happen. Can you at least designate the inside of one cabinet for the calendar and have a big pocket there? Gloria Here is a link that might be useful: mom's calendar

Forget the felt-no durability at all. Once again, from my teaching days-- I used a calendar very much like the one in the photo.They are able to be purchased at school supply places. However since I had large bulletin boards, I made the calendar from bristol board. The numbers were made from bristol board as well and I had a different set for each month, the reason being , they were made in a pattern with symbols appropriate for the month. Sept might have been something like school bus, pencil, school bus, pencil..... By the end of the year the patterns became more complicated. As well, we would put a symbol for whatever the weather was. At the bottom of the calendar I had a long narrow pocket the front of which was clear plastic. It was divided into 3 sections-yesterday was, today is and tomorrow will be.Each day the child put appropriate cards into the pockets. December calendar was special. I baked sugar cookies ( with a hole in the top) and hung them on the calendar. Whoever did the calendar each day got the cookie and replaced it with the number. I hope this gives you a few ideas you can adapt for your own use. Kindergarden was such fun!!!

Here is a sad (for me) story. The year I fancied myself an almost pro photographer, I decided to make my own calendar and give away as Christmas presents. I can't tell you the hours I spent picking just the right pics, with familial meanings, etc. I gave one to a certain relative with anniversaries, BDs, etc. cutely highlited. I nearly died the next visit after Christmas, when the relative had taken down the calendar and put up the Atwoods calendar that is given to customers for free yearly. My work of art was tucked in an unceremonious corner of the room, ready to be trashed when nobody was looking. Hanging of the Atwoods calendar was not a habit to be broken, despite my best intentions. Knocked the wind out of my photographer soul, hahaha sniff hahaha sniff