Calendar Wheels: Free Printable in Simplified and Traditional Chinese

I’ve searched high and low for an interactive Chinese Calendar, and it’s hard to find something that focuses on the principle without being excessively decorated.  Therefore, I decided to create interactive wheels for my children to understand past, present, and future and learn how to read important Chinese words about these concepts.  As always, I am happy to share these with friends and families!  In this article, you will find the following in simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese:

• Days of the Week Wheel
• Months of the Year Wheel

This resource is part of a series on how to teach kids clock and calendar skills:

1. Interactive Perpetual Calendar 
2. Calendar Wheels: Days of the week and Months of the Year (This article)
3. Months and Seasons Paper Plate Puzzle
4. Chinese Zodiac Wheel
5. Teach Kids Time with Simple, Hands-On Clock Activities

Important vocabulary

For the Days of the Week Wheel, we have 2 versions:

• 周一, 二, 三… (zhōu yī, èr, sān…/ Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…)
• 星期一, 二, 三… (xīngqí yī, èr, sān…)

Since we are a Christian family, the 周 wheel has 主日 (zhǔ rì / Lord’s Day) in place of 周日 (zhōu rì / Sunday).  However, the latter is more commonly used.

礼拜一, 二, 三… (lǐbài yī, èr, sān…) is another way to describe days of the week and is used often in certain regions, such as Hong Kong and Singapore.  My Shanghainese relatives also typically say this.  Although, I have not made a 礼拜 wheel yet, these printables are editable, and you are welcome to adjust it for your language needs!

What you need for the calendar wheels:

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1. Calendar wheel templates: free download in our Printables Library for subscribers!
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2. Printer
3. Laminator
4. Laminating pouches
5. Scissors
6. Corkboard
7. Pushpins
8. If you prefer not to pin to corkboard, you can use paper fasteners

How to set up the calendar wheels:

1. Print pdf file on different colors of paper.  My daughter likes choosing the colors!
2. Laminate each page
3. Cut out circles
4. Trim empty cells – I recommend this so that the important characters stand out more (shown in below image)
5. Pin to corkboard so that your child can visualize all wheels

How to teach calendar concepts

Every morning, my family begins the day by identifying the date on the calendar.  We review the calendar as a routine part of the day, because habit and practice encourages pattern recognition and comprehension over time.   Here are basic questions that we discuss when reviewing the calendar wheels

• Months of the year:
  • What month are we in?
  • What month is it next?
  • How many months till the end of the year?
• Days of the week:
  • What day is it today?
  • What day was it yesterday?
  • What day is it tomorrow?

My daughter has so much fun spinning the wheels!   It’s so helpful being able to compare the months of the year and days of the week side by side.

More FREE interactive calendar printables

I highly recommend using the calendar wheels in conjunction with our free Interactive Chinese Calendar!

For Chinese New Year, your family can also enjoy our interactive Chinese Zodiac Wheel in simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and English!

Does your family use 周, 星期, or 礼拜?  Should I make a 礼拜 Days of the Week Wheel?  Feel free to leave a comment with your suggestions!

If you use our calendar printables, please tag @chalkacademy and use the hashtag #ChalkAcademy on Instagram and Facebook!  We’d love to share it with our kids who get excited knowing that other families are having fun learning together! 🙂

Advice on how to teach kids Chinese

• Tips on creating a Chinese learning environment at home
  • Teach Your Child a Second Language at Home with 5 Key Steps
  • Raising Multilingual Children as a Non-Fluent Parent: 7 Lessons Learned in 2018
  • How To Get Your Child To Speak the Minority Language
  • Encourage A Child to Love and Speak the Minority Language with 5 Strategies
  • How to Find a Foreign Language Teacher for Your Child
  • 5 Reasons Books are the Best Gifts for Multilingual Kids
• Teaching kids how to read Chinese
  • When and How to Introduce Chinese Characters to Kids?
  • 10 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Read
  • Create a Print-Rich Environment with Labels that Promote Literacy
  • How I Taught My Child 1000+ Chinese Characters as a Non-Fluent Speaker
  • When Should My Child Learn Hanyu Pinyin?

Happy learning, friends!