Calendar and Dates
Background Information & Activities

A calendar is a chart that keeps track of time. Just as people use clocks to plan their day, many people use calendars to help plan their day, week, or year. Review with your children that a week is a unit of seven days. A month is a unit of about four weeks or 28-31 days. A year is a unit of twelve months, about 52 weeks, or 365 days. There are 366 days in a leap year.

There are several calendars in use in the world today. The Gregorian calendar is the most commonly used, which divides the year into 12 months and 365 or 366 days. The months are based on the moon’s rotation around Earth and the year is based on Earth’s rotation around the Sun. The lunar calendar, used in many Islamic countries, is based purely on the motion of the moon and is shorter than the Gregorian calendar. The lunar calendar is divided into 12 months, but the year is about 354 days per year. There are also cultures that employ a solar/lunar calendar, such as the Hebrew calendar and the Chinese calendar. These calendars employ leap months or leap years in order to follow the Sun and the phases of the moon. Academic and fiscal calendars are also used to manage time.

Your children may already be familiar with the days of the week and the months, but a quick review is always helpful. Writing the date is also an important concept to teach and review. There are several standardized ways to write the date. The first is spelling out the month then followed by the day and year, as in August 25th, 1998. Remind children about the position of the comma, just after the number of the day. This date can also be written using numbers for the months. January is the first month of the year, and it is represented by a 1. February is the second month, and it is represented by a 2, and so on. The date August 25, 1998 can be written as 8/25/1998, using slashes, or as 8-25-1998 with dashes.

Many children have problems remembering the days of the week and the months of the year. Parents and teachers can employ heuristics in helping their children memorize the vocabulary. Another difficulty children meet when learning about days of the week and months of the year is spelling. Encourage your child to find patterns in the names and think of strategies for remembering them. Keeping plenty of day and year calendars around the school or home will also help children become accustomed to the words.

Calendar and Dates Teacher Activities – Click Here!

Calendar and Dates Family Activities – Click Here!

Calendar and Dates Teacher Activities

What’s in a name?

To help children remember the days of the week, discuss the origins of each name. It may be helpful for children who are familiar with a Romance language, such as Spanish, German, Italian, or French, to link the day names together. Sunday comes from the Latin dies solis, “sun’s day,” which is the name of a pagan Roman holiday. It is also called Dominica, and the words for Sunday across Romance languages, such as domingo (Spanish), sonntag (German), and dimanche (French) share the same origin. Monday comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for “moon’s day,” monandaeg. Tuesday was named after the Norse god Tyr. The Spanish word for Tuesday is martes, which was named after the Roman god of war, Mars. Wednesday was named after the Norse god, Wodan or Odin. The ancient Romans named it after the god Mercury, as in miércoles in Spanish. Thursday was named after the Norse god Thor. The ancient Romans named it after Jove or Jupiter, as in jueves in Spanish. Friday was named after the Norse goddess Frigg. The ancient Romans named it after the goddess Venus, as in viernes in Spanish. Saturday was named after the Roman god Saturn, as in sábado in Spanish.

Have students make fact cards for each day of the week. They can decorate their cards and write a description of the origins of the day’s name on the other side, or even write the name in different languages. Then they can use these fact cards to make their own calendars.

Class Calendar

Create a class wall-calendar together. Each month should have the name of the month and days, as well as the numbers. Also add the number of the month in the corner so students get accustomed to associating a number with the month without having to count off on their fingers. One easy way for children to figure out if a month has 30 or 31 days is by using their hands. Have children make two fists, with the fingers facing down. Bring the fists together so that the top knuckles align. Each knuckle represents 31 days and each divot between the knuckles represents 30 days. January represents the leftmost knuckle, which stands for 31 days. Students will have to remember that February follows its own rules. You will see that the right knuckle of the left hand and the left knuckle of the right hand are right next to each other. These knuckles represent July and August respectively, which each has 31 days.

Maintain the class calendar together, adding notes for important dates, such as quizzes, exams, assignments, and holidays. Children may also want to add their birthdays, and schedule a party for the summer birthdays.

Calendario

Some languages share cognates with English. Cognates are words that have the same origin. For example, the Spanish word for calendar is calendario. Encourage students to research names for the days of the week and months in different languages. Have students who are bilingual share their words with the class. Then discuss how the words are alike and different from their English counterparts. If possible, write the words on the board so students can visualize how the words are similar.

Personal Calendar

Have students create their own calendars. Print out blank calendars from the BrainPOP Jr.’s activity page and have students fill in the month, names of the days, and the numbers. Students can decorate each page of the calendar with a scene that is related to the month. For example, a student may want to draw a snowman for the month of December or draw their own birthday party for the month that contains their birthday. Discuss different school holidays, such as spring break and winter vacation and add them to the calendar. Students can present their calendars to their families as gifts.

Calendar and Dates Family Activities

Family Calendar

Make a family calendar with your child. You can print out blank calendars from BrainPOP Jr.’s activity page and write in the name of each month and add the numbers for the days together. You and your child can pick family photos together or draw pictures to decorate each month. As you go through each month together, discuss important dates, such as birthdays, anniversaries, practices, rehearsals, and appointments. Also discuss events that happen in each month, such as holidays, and describe different seasons and weather conditions. Encourage your child to use complete sentences as he or she describes each month. At the end of each day, have your child put an X over the day and say the date for the next day.

Month Music

Together make up a song to help your child memorize the names of the month and days of the week. You may want to use the tune of an old favorite, like “Yankee Doodle” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” or make up your own tune. Your child may also want to rap instead of sing. Sing the song together while getting ready for bed, on the way to school or home, and during clean-up times. You may also want to combine the song with an activity such as washing hands so that your child spends enough time to do the activity properly.

M.O.N.D.A.Y.

Over the course of a week, create an acrostic poem with your child for each day of the week. Use the first letter of a day of the week to write a line of poetry. Encourage your child to use details that are specific to that day, such as Monday being soccer practice or Friday being family night. Keep the poems on hand and at the beginning of each day, read the day’s acrostic poem together.