Giant Printable Summer Calendar to keep your family organized this year

Your whole family will get excited about summer when they see this giant poster-sized calendar hanging on the wall. Color it, decorate it, and fill it up with all your fun summer plans!

Who’s ready for summer?!?! Ready or not, it’s coming in the next few weeks, and if you’re like me, you’re starting to think about getting things organized for the months ahead.

Here’s the thing…summer is fabulous, but the change in routine can be rough if you don’t have a plan.

The Benefits of a Giant Printable Summer Calendar

Whether you’re going on an epic trip or are keeping things more low-key with a staycation, I’ve found it is extremely helpful to have a calendar on the wall to keep everyone informed of what we have going on during the summer.

Have a summer camp planned?

Swim lessons?

Family vacation?

Visitors coming into town?

Put it all on the calendar!

I use digital calendars to keep myself organized (I don’t know what I would do without those automatic reminders!), but having a printed calendar that everyone can see helps my kids know the plan, too.

Sure, you could just print a basic calendar on regular-sized paper, but there’s just something so FUN about having a giant poster on the wall where you can keep track of all the fun plans coming up!

What you’ll love about the giant printable summer calendar:

I’m the kind of person who has very specific ideas about how I want things to be, and when I can’t find what I want…I MAKE it! That’s what happened with this calendar. There are other summer calendars out there, but here are the features you’ll love about this printable summer calendar:

1. It’s black and white: Why does that matter? Because it’s a LOT more expensive to print a color poster (more tips for printing your poster below). By keeping it black and white, you save money. Take the family to get snow cones instead of spending the money on a color poster!
2. Your kids can color and customize it! The title at the top uses an outline-style font so your kids can color it and add any other decorations you want.
3. It’s BIG! The calendar is formatted to be printed as a 24×36 inch poster. This means that even with three months on one page, the boxes are plenty big to write in.
4. It includes June, July, and August in a continuous format. This calendar maximizes the space by flowing seamlessly from one month to the next. You don’t have awkward gaps or empty boxes to deal with.
5. It does NOT include a pre-written bucket list. One of the main reasons I made my own giant calendar was because I didn’t want to hang a poster with a whole bunch of bucket list ideas I don’t want to do. And I definitely don’t want my kids to get excited about ideas we can’t do. I’d rather start with a blank canvas and add ideas that we think of ourselves and that work for our family.

Where to print your summer calendar:

Most print shops have something called an “engineering” print or a “blueprint.” It’s the cheapest way I know to get a giant poster-size print. They are NOT meant for printing full photography (people did this years ago, but companies have started cracking down on it because it uses too much ink), but they’re perfect for low-ink projects…like a giant summer calendar!

I have been printing these large engineering prints at my local Office Depot for years. They usually cost less than five dollars (depending on what discount they’re running at the time) and the quality is always really high. You can order online and have it shipped to you (more expensive) or choose to pick up at your local store for no additional cost.

I highly recommend it!

Tips for filling your calendar with fun:

A calendar is only as useful as you make it, right? So once you have it printed and hung up, start writing in all the fun plans you have for summer!

Start by writing in all the BIG events your family has planned: vacations, summer camps, visits from relatives. Then add in other scheduled events, like weekly lessons, sports practices, etc.

Finally, you can add in your bucket list items. I like to add in these ideas a week at a time as we go through the summer.

Here’s how we do this:

At the beginning of the summer, I sit down with my kids and we make a bucket list of the things we want to do during the summer. Some might be big outings that cost money, but most are small and simple things we can do at home or nearby for free. We write down ALL the ideas, and keep it near our calendar.

If you need some inspiration for your bucket list, check out our Summer Bucket List BINGO.

Then at the beginning of each week, we look at our schedule, and we’ll choose a few activities to plug into the calendar that week. You could let each child pick one, all decide together, or YOU can just choose based on how you are feeling that week. I like to do this in conjunction with our “summer plan for fun” schedule.

By putting the fun ON the calendar, everyone know what’s coming. This is good for several reasons:

1. My kids don’t ask me “What are we doing today?” over and over all summer.
2. They’re more content during the times when we don’t have anything specific planned because they know when the fun is coming.
3. It helps ME to not feel guilty during the downtimes because I can that we are doing a lot of fun things, too!

You can totally make your own calendar, too, but if you want the giant printable summer calendar I created for you, it’s available in my shop for $4. Happy summer planning mamas!

Want more help planning your summer?

• How to get kids to read this summer + Free printable summer reading charts
• Summer Plan for Fun! (your simple guide to a fantastic summer at home)
• Summer Bucket List BINGO