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Health:
Using color, you can indicate personal cycles, energy or mood changes, headaches, fatigue, returning ailments or energy bursts and productivity. Becoming aware of the pattern of these events can greatly aid in using these cycles to assist you rather than take you unaware. When able to see patterns, we become able to treat the cause, heal more effectively and utilize your energy to maximum potential—working with your body instead of against it. You can also use the calendar for tracking your successes related to your health. Color code your exercise days, types of workouts (upper body, legs, aerobics, walking, etc.), non-smoking/drinking days, successful dieting...Color code your diet for evaluating how well you really are sticking to it!
For family planning, we know of no other calendar on which you can follow your personal cycles a year-at-a-glance and visually see the patterns of your fertility. Choose a color to represent your menstrual flow and chart it on the calendar each month. Do the same with a new color for ovulation. The result will be a very visual understanding of your personal body rhythms.
Spirituality:
Track your mediations, worship, prayer, church visits, service, labyrinth walks...any spiritual practice! So often we think we aren't doing enough when, once colored and "graphed," we can visually see what we are doing! If you are familiar with walking the labyrinth as a metaphorical journey, you will LOVE the recognition that you are walking on your spiritual journey through time, all of the time, every where! Each moment is a step on your spiritual journey. The Spiral Labyrinth Calendar will allow you a "bird's eye view" of how spiritually you are living your life...and allow you to self-adjust if necessary.
Business:
Again using color codes, the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar can be used for project planning, employee scheduling, and keeping track of important dates, like Pay-days or project deadlines. Color in the dates on the calendar which indicate periods of idea development, periods of production, project deadlines. Color periods of high productivity or sales one color and periods of low production another. Color code each employee and keep track of work schedules for the whole year. The result will enable you to visibly examine the productivity patterns and inner workings of your company.
Emotions and Moods:
Sometimes we think that we are emotionally stuck, "always" feeling a certain way ...or someone says, "you always seem so angry" and you angrily reply, "I am not!" Our emotions are like a piano keyboard in terms of range. By tracking your moods and emotions you can come to see patterns in where your "home note" is emotionally. Once recognized, you can take active steps to stretch your emotional range and consciously bring more joy and happiness into your life. Tracking activities and emotions simultaneously will reveal to you personal patterns and valuable information for making steps toward transformation and strengthening.
Relationships:
By tracking your time spent with different people, and your time spent alone, you'll be able to see a graph of your relationships. You can track both "Quality" and "Quantity" in relationships in order to identify what is actually taking place. Once known, you can make new choices.
Astrology:
The Spiral Labyrinth Calendar is magnificent for tracking moon and planetary cycles and their effect on you. Color code the calendar to match your astrological charts so that at a glance you can make daily plans accordingly. You will instantly see any patterns developing in the Astrological effects on your daily life.
Personal Growth and Productivity:
Use the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar to plan goal achievement dates, personal projects and accomplishments. Color code vacations, personal productivity, important holidays or personal days of celebration. Combine any or all of these suggestions and more to represent your personal pictorial journal. You will see your life in a colorful and beautiful way.
Fun and Creativity:
Simply explore with your favorite colors. You may choose to color each month a separate color, creating a beautiful rainbow-like effect, or use two alternating colors for easy recognition of each new month. You can color code the first day of each month or put symbols on the birthdays of all your friends and family. Have everyone who comes to visit color their birthday in their own special way. The possibilities are truly endless.
Vision for the Year:
Below the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar is a box for writing or drawing your vision or goal for the year. Take some time to carefully consider your goals. You may choose something as simple as one word such as Peace, Health, or Success, or an affirmation such as, "I am creating success for myself and others," etc. It could also be a goal, "I will publish my book," or anything else of meaning to you. After all, it is your vision, your year, your life! Create it with a constant reminder to focus and align your thoughts, words and actions with your personal vision.
Look at it everyday and watch it become a reality!
Use the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar with Children!
Teach your children the concept of time the way it REALLY works—connected each day to the next, each month to the next in a continuous flow. While the uses below are geared for the classroom, a little imagination and you will discover ways to use it with children at home as well. Help them set goals, mark off days until special events, use it for postitive discipline tracking their successful behavior...
Or in the Classroom! (ask about classroom sets!)
There are many possible uses for the spiral calendar in the classroom. Here are some ideas and suggestions however, I'm sure you will discover many other possible uses. The underlying theme of all of these activities is the raising of self-esteem and greater awareness about oneself and responsibility for oneself. Whether every student has a calendar, or every cooperative learning group, every period, or simply every class, there are a myriad of ways to incorporate it into your classroom!
GOAL-SETTING: Since the calendar has a space at the bottom for "Vision For The Year" it lends itself beautifully toward class discussions about what hopes, dreams, visions and goals the class has, collectively and individually. One teacher had each of her students decide on a quality or characteristic they wanted to develop more in themselves. Every time the student or class looks at the calendar they will be reminded of their desire and intent.
It can also be used to plot and color the expected goal completion deadlines. Each student can contribute to the coloring of the calendar by decorating the date square which correlates with their expected success.
In addition since each month flows right into the next, continuously, it is possible to see time as a path through life. This is a wonderful concept for kids (and adults) to explore, as it encourages the awareness that each day is leading somewhere and how we spend each day contributes to where we end up.
CREATIVE WRITING: There is a great book by Byrd Baylor called I'm In Charge Of Celebrations which is great stimulus for having kids create and write about their own personal celebrations in life. It can be taught as style imitation writing since Byrd Baylor's writing style is simple, fun and descriptive. Not only does this lesson focus kids on there own lives and the wonderful, worthy -of-celebration experiences they all have had or would like to create, but it also helps them define values by taking a close look a why they liked the event and what was special about it to them. With the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar of the Year the kids can then color in their special celebration days. Each child can try out their creativity and leadership skills by guiding the class through a unique ritual of celebration created specifically for their day.
HOMEWORK AND TIME MANAGEMENT: One teacher assigned each cooperative learning group a different color. Then, whichever group had the most homework turned in for each day got to color the daily square their color. Patterns emerge immediately and visually regarding who is following through. Their own colorful square acted as incentive to accomplish the task.
One could also use the calendar for plotting due dates of major assignments. With the whole year at a glance, students can begin time management skills, planning and alloting themselves the necessary time to complete the assignment.
If tests are given routinely, every other Thursday for example, one could color the whole year of Thursdays a special color to remind the students. Or Math test days could be one color, Spelling another, etc.
EMOTIONS AND THE CLASSROOM CLIMATE: The calendar is also a perfect tool for visually recording the mood of the class. A class in Lompoc assigned each of four or five moods a color. For example, angry could be red, peaceful could be blue, productive could be yellow, etc. At the end of each day the class would reflect on their day and determine what kind of day they had and then color the day accordingly. This process is great for developing the ability to take a meta-perspective of the day and evaluate it. From this new place of awareness the class is then able to make choices about the kind of day they want and set goals for the next day. Cooperation can easily be taught in conjunction with this process.
Discipline: As an intermediate school counselor, I used the Spiral Labyrinth Calendar for tracking successful behavior days for one particularly challenging student. Since he had six periods a day, we color coded numbers (1 red, 2 blue, 3 green...with his favorite color being 6-orange and colored in the calendar at the end of the day based on how many periods he got positive reports in (or at least didn't get kicked out of!). The calendar provided a great documentation and positive reinforcement of his success. Instead of saying, "I got kicked out of 2 classes today." He could look at the calendar and say, "I was good in 4 classes today." Through this reinforcement process, his behavior greatly improved. The same can be done for tracking homework.
MATH: Since the above plotting and recording is essentially graphing, it would be possible to design a lesson related to patterns, graphing and the benefits of visual records. The class can create new symbol or color patterns every month or record weather patterns. It may also assist younger children in understanding the concept of 365 days, while enhancing the idea that each month is connected to the next, unlike what is shown in the traditional linear calendars.
ART: The entire spectrum of the rainbow can be explored while coloring and decorating the calendar. In addition, each student can be assigned the responsibility for certain sections of the calendar. If you have a Special Child of the Week or day, they may enjoy artistically designing their special days. You can also have each child in the class color their birthday on the calendar with little symbols of importance to them. Each child can have their own calendar and discover their own unique ways of colorfully interpreting the year.
SOCIAL STUDIES: One of the fun things to do with the calendar is to customize it by coloring in the traditional holidays we celebrate. This project can open the doors to exploring what the holidays represent in history. It is also a prime time to discuss holidays from different cultures. Since it is a values clarification exercise to decide which holidays to include, it would easily be the catalyst to exploring the ethnic and religious backgrounds and beliefs of the students in the class. This is also an ideal way to explore the concept of symbols, i.e. how to represent the holidays in graphics.
Another Social Studies project would be to study and explore different calendars and time keepers throughout time. The Mexican Calendar Stone, The Aztec Calendar and Stonehenge would be an interesting beginning.
CREATIVITY AND PROBLEM SOLVING: Using the calendar as a basis for discussion, the topic of creativity could be explored. Here we have a practical item, a calendar, that has been looked at in a creative new way and changed for new benefits. What other practical things can the students think of that can be looked at in a new way? The book A Whack On The Side Of The Head by Roger Von Oech is full of wonderful ideas for stretching our creative capacities.
Exercises in problem solving will be encountered when students need to figure out how to use the calendar, how to work within small spaces, how to compromise and share when ideas clash or special days belong to more than one person. The calendar is fertile ground for cooperative learning.
Develop your own creativity by inventing other possible uses in the classroom and give the kids an opportunity to brainstorm ideas, too.
Please feel free to write and let me know!! I'd love to hear!!
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