The Calendar: Days, Weeks, Months (2nd Ed, 1980)

w [Music] here are Robert and Kathy and their Uncle Frank they all have lots of days to remember birthdays holidays special days and like everyone else they use the calendar to help them do that except Uncle Frank that is unle UNC Frank hardly ever uses the calendar he just uses his memory or at least he tries to uh let's see September 3rd that's uh 3 weeks before no uh 6 days after you of course that gets him into a lot of trouble he never seems to know when special days are coming up like people who use calendars do of course this isn't the only calendar Robert and Kathy could use calendars come in lots of shapes and sizes big ones little ones calendars all on one sheet calendars with separate pages calendars in datebooks and on desks and wall calendars but they are all alike in an important way they all help us keep track of time and that's what Robert and Cathy's calendar helped them do one day they were out in the yard with Frank when Kathy remembered something Robert isn't Uncle Frank's birthday pretty soon birthday they thought it wasn't very far off so they went into the house to look at their calendar my [Music] birthday Robert and Cathy's calendar has one page for each month of the year how many months are there 12 each one has a name and they have a certain order the year starts with January we'll explain what those orange boxes are later the next month is do you know February if you can say the rest then come March April May June July August September October November and the last month is December my birthday is in November every space with a number in it means another day since this is October these spaces stand for the days in that month well Robert and Kathy knew uncle Frank's birthday was on November 3rd and that today's date was October 24th they knew that because that was the date on today's newspaper so to find out how many days there were until Frank's birthday they needed to start on October 24th and count spaces to November 3rd this is October 24th that's what this 24 means the 24th day of October so Robert and Kathy started counting spaces is from here we can count with them 1 2 3 then go down to the next row and keep on Counting 4 5 6 7 they found that there were seven days from here to the last day of October then they turn the page to the next month November and kept counting remember we're on seven now 8 9 10 that's it November 3rd uncle Frank's birthday there were 10 days from October 24th to November 3rd so Robert and Kathy knew that there were 10 days until uncle Frank's birthday they decided that now would be a good time to go get him a present [Music] now a calendar can tell us many things not just how many days there are to a special day it also tells us the names of the days a calendar can do this because of the way it's made imagine the numbers weren't written in for the days of this month this is how they would get put in every day of the month has a number a month starts with number one that's the first day of the month this month is October so this is October 1st or the 1st of October or October 1 there are different ways you can say it the next day is number two the second day of the month October 2nd and the third is number three the third day of the month and then the fourth and fifth and sixth and so on until the end of October which is 31 or October 31st the last number always tells us how many days there are in a month so anyone looking at this page knows that October has 31 days up here are the names of the days of the week one at the top of each column seven columns and seven days the First Column is headed sun which stands for Sunday if we put in the whole word Sunday on this calendar it would be too big for the box it would stick out on the sides so we just shorten the word to Sun s n is an abbreviation for Sunday we can use abbreviations for for the other days of the week too the day after Sunday is Monday abbreviated m o n you can say the rest of the days if you like Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday that's seven days Sunday to Saturday or one week on a calendar any row of seven days all the way across is one week this is one week for instance and so is this but any seven days one after the other make a week too so this is a week and this is a week all of the days in each column come on the day of the week that's printed at the top of the column for instance all of these days are Tuesdays and all of these days are Wednesdays and all of these are Fridays now Robert and Kathy wondered what day of the week Uncle Frank's birthday was on first they found the right date November 3rd then they looked at the top of the column November 3rd was in and what did it say Saturday so they knew uncle Frank's birthday was going to be on a Saturday that's a good day for a party no school and most people don't work then either so Robert and Kathy decided to have a surprise party for Uncle Frank a few days later Robert and Kathy were seeing how many days were still left before Frank's birthday when Robert noticed something that we've noticed before that one of the days was colored differently from the others Kathy knew what that meant it meant it was a holiday Robert knew that that wasn't the only holiday so he looked for some others in some other months he found many of them the first day in January is a holiday New Year's Day and in February there's Valentine's Day all over the world people use the calendar to keep track of days that are special in their countries the 4th of July for instance is Independence Day only in the United States the 14th of July is bastile day a special day for people in France the second Monday in October is Thanksgiving Day in Canada so the days of October passed Robert was especially happy when October 31st came because that was one of his favorite holidays [Music] Halloween another thing the calendar is good for is to keep track of other kinds of special days like the day library books are due so you won't forget to return them or the day when you are going to see a play or the day you visit your grandparents well Halloween was the last day of October the 31st the next day Robert turned the page to November it began on a Thursday he expected November to begin on a Monday like October did but it didn't this is why it didn't the last day of October the 31st came on a Wednesday so the next day November 1st was a Thursday the next day of the week a month can begin on any day of the week Robert also noticed that while October had 31 days November only had 30 days this made him curious so he looked at the other months he saw that some had 30 days some had 31 and one had only 28 Cathy knew a rhyme to help remember all this 30 days have September April June and November all the rest have 31 except February which has 28 and leape gives it an extra date then Kathy showed Robert another way to remember the number of days in each month you can use your knuckles you start here the high places stand for the months with 31 days the places between them the Low Places stand for the shorter months January this is a high place so January has 31 days February this is a low Place usually only 28 days March 31 days April a low Place 30 days May 31 days June 30 days July 31 days then start again August 31 days September 30 days October 31 days November 30 days and December 31 days November made Robert think of something he thought he should probably lock the closet in order to keep uncle Frank's birthday present safe so he went to do [Music] that so as Robert and Cathy know the calendar does many things it tells us the months in order and the number of days in each month it can help us find the number of days between two dates it tells us the names of the days of the week and helps us remember holidays and special days in all of these ways the calendar helps us keep track of time while time kept passing the days kept going by and it was getting closer and closer to Uncle Frank's birthday finally November 3rd arrived and Uncle Frank found out what he was getting for his birthday day a pair of roller skates and a calendar [Music]