Understanding the Calendar

A calendar is a system for organizing and recording the passage of time. It helps us keep track of days, weeks, months, and years. There are several components of a calendar that are important to understand:

Days of the Week

The week is a seven-day cycle that is used in most calendars. The days of the week are named as follows: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Months of the Year

A year is divided into twelve months. The months and their number of days are as follows:

• January - 31 days
• February - 28 or 29 days (leap year)
• March - 31 days
• April - 30 days
• May - 31 days
• June - 30 days
• July - 31 days
• August - 31 days
• September - 30 days
• October - 31 days
• November - 30 days
• December - 31 days

Years

A year is the time it takes for the Earth to make one complete orbit around the sun. Most calendars use the Gregorian calendar system, which has 365 days in a common year and 366 days in a leap year.

Study Guide

Here are some key concepts to study when learning about calendars:

1. Identifying the days of the week and their order in the calendar.
2. Understanding the number of days in each month and their order in the calendar.
3. Recognizing leap years and understanding why they occur.
4. Converting dates between different formats (e.g., from month/day/year to day/month/year).
5. Solving problems involving elapsed time, such as determining the number of days between two dates.

[Calendar] Related Worksheets and Study Guides:

• Time and CalendarESL-Spanish • Grades 3-5