The best parent gift a child can give is one they made slowly, over weeks, with their own hands. Not a worksheet colored in one sitting and shoved in a backpack, but a calendar that took a month of drawing lessons, one step at a time, and ended up hanging on a kitchen wall all year. That is what this project is. Children draw 26 pictures — a self-portrait and two themed drawings for each month — and bind them with calendar pages for 2027 and 2028 to make a gift for Christmas.
The set has 86 pages: 26 step-by-step directed drawings with six guided steps per drawing page, 13 trace-and-draw sheets, 12-month calendar pages for 2027 and 12 for 2028, plus 12 write-in months, and gift pages with three decorated calendar covers, a family note and six gift tags. It comes in color and black-and-white versions. The work splits by age — fine-motor practice for kindergarten and 1st grade, art work for 2nd and 3rd grade — and the same set works for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts, art centers, early finishers and indoor recess. This guide walks through the project week by week, from the first drawing lesson to the wrapping.
Before December: Read the Plan Once
The teacher pages are short: teacher notes, a planning page, a contents page and a finished color example. Read them once before the project starts, and look at the finished example. The example shows what a completed calendar looks like — drawings, calendar pages, cover — and it is the clearest way to understand the project. Show it to the class on the first day, too. Children who can see the finished gift work harder on the first drawing, because they know where the work is going.
Decide the schedule before you print anything. The project needs about a month of art time if children draw one or two pictures a week, and December is shorter than it looks — assemblies, concerts, parties and early dismissals eat art blocks. Start in the last week of November if you can. A calendar finished on December 18 is a gift. A calendar finished on December 23 is a rush job with wet glue.
Print one week at a time. The full 86 pages in a stack is a lot of paper to manage, and a child who sees the whole stack will ask to do the fun months first. Print the drawings for the month you are working on, plus the trace-and-draw sheets for children who need them, and keep the calendar pages and gift pages in a folder until the last week. The calendar pages are the reward for finishing the drawings, and holding them back keeps the drawings moving.
Sort the materials now. Children need pencils, erasers, crayons or colored pencils, and scissors and glue for the assembly week. The drawings are done in pencil first, then colored. Teach that order on day one: draw in pencil, check the steps, then color. A child who colors first cannot erase a wrong line, and a child who draws in pen cannot fix a mistake at all. Pencil first is the rule for the whole month.
Week 1: Teach the Steps, Not the Picture
The first week is about the routine, not the art. Each drawing page has six guided steps, and the steps are the lesson. Teach the first drawing the way every drawing will be taught: show step one on the board, let children do step one, show step two, let children do step two. The stop-and-wait rhythm feels slow, and it is the reason the drawings work. A child who follows six steps one at a time finishes with a picture that looks like the thing they meant to draw. A child who races ahead draws something unrecognizable and decides they cannot draw.
Start with the self-portrait. It is the first drawing in the set, and it is the one children care about most, because the subject is themselves. Teach it the way the steps teach it: a shape for the head, shapes for the body, then details — hair, eyes, a smile, clothes. Talk out loud while you draw. "First I draw a big circle for the head. Then I add a rectangle for the body." Saying the steps aloud is the teaching. Children copy what they hear as much as what they see, and the words become the instructions they repeat to themselves when they draw alone.
The trace-and-draw sheets belong in week one. Thirteen sheets put all 26 drawings in dashed tracing form, two per page, for children who need a steadier hand before they draw freehand. Give the tracing sheet to the child who freezes in front of a blank page. Tracing is not a crutch. It is muscle memory: the hand learns the path of a curve by following it, and then it can make the curve alone. A child who traces the self-portrait today may draw the January picture freehand next week. A child who is forced to draw freehand on day one may stop drawing altogether.
Coloring is a lesson, not a finish line. Teach children to color inside the lines, use more than one color, and fill the white space. Children who rush through coloring are usually rushing because they think the drawing is finished when the outline is done. Tell them the drawing is finished when it is colored with care. Put the finished color example where children can see it, and point to it when a child asks if they are done. "Does yours look finished like the example? What is missing?" That question takes longer to answer than the drawing took, and that is the point.
Weeks 2 and 3: The Months
By the second week, the routine runs itself, and the work is the drawings: two themed drawings for each month, plus the self-portrait pages that go with them. Two drawings a week is a good pace — one in the morning and one in the afternoon, or both inside a longer art block. Do not try to do a whole month in one day. The drawings are the gift, and a gift made in a hurry looks like one.
Keep the months in order. The set is organized month by month, and the drawings follow the year: winter pictures for January, spring pictures for April, summer pictures for July, fall pictures for October. A child who draws the months in order learns the year as they draw it, and the calendar makes sense when it is assembled. If a child misses a week, give them the tracing sheet for the missed drawing rather than skipping the month. A calendar with a missing month is a calendar with a hole in it.
The two levels of the set are really two focuses, and they split by age. For kindergarten and 1st grade, the work is fine-motor practice: holding the pencil, following the steps, tracing the dashed lines, coloring with control. For 2nd and 3rd grade, the work is art: choosing colors, adding a background, making the picture their own. The same drawing page serves both groups, and the teacher's job is to ask different questions. To a kindergartner: "Did you follow all six steps?" To a third grader: "What did you add to make it yours?" Both questions are about the same drawing, and both are right for the child being asked.
Watch for the child who says "I can't draw." It usually happens in week one or two, and it usually means the child has compared their drawing to someone else's. The fix is the steps. Sit beside the child, do step one together, then step two. A child who can do one step can do six, and once they see that, the sentence "I can't draw" loses its power. Never let a child sit out a drawing lesson. Give them the tracing sheet, give them a model to follow, and let the steps do the teaching.
Keep the finished drawings in order. A folder per child, with the drawings in month order, is worth the five minutes it takes to set up. Drawings loose in a desk get crumpled, lost, or colored over by a neighbor. A folder with the child's name on it keeps the work safe and shows the child the gift growing. Let children look through their folders on Fridays. A child who sees twelve finished drawings understands what a month of work looks like, and that understanding is part of the gift.
Week 4: Calendar Pages and Assembly
The last week is assembly, and it is the week that needs the most planning. The calendar pages are the reason the drawings are a gift instead of a stack of pictures, so teach the calendar before you hand it out. Show children a finished calendar page: the month name at the top, the days in rows, the holidays marked. Ask them to find their birthday. Ask them to find Christmas. A child who can find a date on a calendar understands what they are making, and that understanding makes the assembly careful instead of rushed.
The set includes 12-month calendar pages for 2027 and 12 for 2028, with dates and holidays, plus 12 write-in months with blank dates. The months are split as 2027 (with 2028 dates and 2028 self-portrait pages) and 2028 (with 2029 dates and 2029 self-portrait pages). That split means the set covers two years of making: the 2027 calendar is made this December, and the 2028 calendar can be made the following December with the same set. Tell the children that, too. A gift that can be made again next year is a tradition, not a one-off.
Assembly day needs a clear order. First, the drawings in month order. Then the calendar page for that month behind each drawing, or in front of it — decide once and do it the same way for every child, or the calendars will come out in twelve different orders. Then the cover. Then the gift tag and the family note. The family note is printed two per page, and it tells the family what the gift is and who made it. Attach it. A gift without a note is a mystery; a gift with a note is a keepsake.
The three decorated calendar covers give children a choice, and choice matters at the end of a long project. Let each child pick the cover they like best. It costs nothing and it makes the calendar theirs. Then the gift tags: six tags, one per calendar, with the child's name. Teach children to write their name carefully on the tag. It is the signature on the gift, and a careful signature is the last lesson of the project.
The Gift Goes Home
The day the calendars go home is the day the project pays off, and it is worth a little ceremony. Let children wrap their calendars or put them in a bag with the gift tag showing. Do not send them home loose in a backpack. A calendar loose in a backpack arrives home bent, and a bent gift is a sad end to a month of work. A paper bag, a piece of ribbon, or a folded sheet of wrapping paper is enough.
The family note does the explaining, but a short message home helps too. Tell families what the calendar is: 26 drawings their child made step by step, calendar pages for 2027 and 2028, and a gift made to hang on the wall. Ask families to hang it up. A calendar on a kitchen wall gets used all year, and every time the child sees it, they remember the month they made it. That is a better outcome than any grade.
Keep one finished calendar in the classroom as an example for next year. The finished color example in the set is a good model, but a real child's calendar is a better one. Next December, when a new class starts the project, show them last year's calendar first. Children who can see what a classmate made will believe they can make one too.
Beyond Christmas
The Directed Drawing Calendar 2027 & 2028 does not end in December. The same drawings and the same routine work for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts — a calendar made in May, with the same 26 drawings and a new cover, is a spring gift instead of a winter one. The directed-drawing pages work as art centers all year: put one drawing page and the tracing sheet at the art table, and let children draw during center time. The fine-motor practice is the same, and the children who missed the December project get a second chance.
Early finishers and indoor recess are the easiest uses. A child who finishes their work early can take a drawing page and work through the six steps quietly. A rainy day with no recess can be a drawing afternoon. The project is already planned, already printed, and already familiar, which makes it the easiest emergency plan in the cupboard.
For homeschool families, the calendar is a month of art lessons with a gift at the end, and the two-year span means the same set can be made twice. The planning page and the contents page give the month its shape, and the daily drawing routine needs no preparation beyond printing and gathering pencils and crayons.
Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them
The most common mistake is starting too late. December looks like a whole month, and it is not. Assemblies, concerts, parties and early dismissals take art blocks, and a project that needs four weeks will not fit into two. Start in the last week of November. If you are reading this in mid-December, do fewer drawings — one per month instead of two — and make a six-month calendar instead of a twelve-month one. A shorter calendar finished well is better than a full calendar finished in a rush.
The second mistake is printing everything at once. The full 86 pages in a stack invites children to skip ahead to the fun months, and it invites the teacher to lose track of which drawings are done. Print one week at a time, and keep the calendar pages and gift pages in a folder until the last week. The calendar pages are the reward for finishing the drawings.
The third mistake is letting children color before they draw. A child who colors first cannot erase a wrong line, and a child who draws in pen cannot fix a mistake. Pencil first, check the steps, then color. Say it every week, not just the first week. The rule fades fast if the teacher stops saying it.
The fourth mistake is doing the assembly for the children. It is tempting, when the clock is running and the calendars have to go home tomorrow, to put them together yourself. Do not. A calendar assembled by the teacher is the teacher's gift. Let children assemble their own, even if it is slower, even if the pages are not perfectly straight. The crooked page is the child's work, and the family will love it more for that.
Frequently Asked Questions
What grades is this calendar project for?
It is written for kindergarten through 3rd grade. Kindergarten and 1st grade focus on fine-motor practice, while 2nd and 3rd grade focus on the art work. The same drawing pages serve both groups, and the trace-and-draw sheets support the youngest children.
How many drawings are included?
There are 26 step-by-step directed drawings: a boy or girl self-portrait plus two themed drawings for each month, with six guided steps per drawing page. The set also includes 13 trace-and-draw sheets with all 26 drawings in dashed tracing form, two per page.
Which years does the calendar cover?
The set includes 12-month calendar pages for 2027 and 12 for 2028, with dates and holidays, plus 12 write-in months with blank dates. The months are split as 2027 (with 2028 dates and 2028 self-portrait pages) and 2028 (with 2029 dates and 2029 self-portrait pages), so the same set can be used again the following year.
Is it made to be given as a gift?
Yes. The Directed Drawing Calendar 2027 & 2028 is made as a Christmas parent gift, and it includes three decorated calendar covers, a family note printed two per page, and six gift tags. The same set also works for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts.
What do children need besides the packet?
Pencils, erasers, crayons or colored pencils, and scissors and glue for the assembly week. The drawings are done in pencil first, then colored, and the calendar pages are assembled in the last week.
Can I use it for homeschool?
Yes. The planning page and contents page give the month its shape, and the daily drawing routine needs no preparation beyond printing and gathering pencils and crayons. The two-year span means the same set can be made twice.
What if we start late in December?
Do fewer drawings — one per month instead of two — and make a six-month calendar instead of a twelve-month one. A shorter calendar finished well is better than a full calendar finished in a rush, and the tracing sheets help late starters catch up.
