Reading a Calendar

A calendar is a very important tool in our everyday lives.

It allows us to keep track of the days, weeks, months, and years.

By reading the calendar, we can know what year, month, and day it is.

The yearly calendar is divided into 12 months:

Let's illustrate through examples.

Example 1

What is the 10th month of the year?

Solution

The months listed in order are:

Counting down the list, we see that October is the 10^th month.

Example 2

Alex's birthday is in March. Sara's birthday is 2 months later. In which month does Sara's birthday fall?

Solution

March is the 3^rd month. April is the 4^th month and May is the 5^th month.

May is 2 months later than March.

Sara's birthday is in May.

Each month in the calendar is divided into weeks and the weeks are divided into 7 days each:

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Each day in a month is assigned a specific number.

Not all months have the same number of days; some months have 31 days, some have 30 days, and one month even has 28 (or 29) days. It can be difficult to remember how many days are in each month! One way is to use your knuckles and the spaces between your knuckles to represent the months. Imagine that the four knuckles on your hand are mountains and the spaces in between are valleys.

Start from one side of your hand, with January on top of the first mountain. February then is in the first valley, March on the second mountain, etc. When you reach the last knuckle on your hand, continue on to the first knuckle on your second hand.

The months that are on top of the 'mountains' have 31 days. The months in the valleys have 30 days, with the exception of February, which has 28 (or 29) days.

February is different from the other months. It has 28 days, except in leap years, when it has 29 days.

Leap years usually falls every 4 years.

The actual rules for determining if a year is a leap year are slightly more complicated than this.

First, a year has to be divisible by 4.

2004, 2008, and 2012 were all leap years because the numbers 2004, 2008, and 2012 are all divisible by 4.

Second, years that mark the turn of a century are not leap years, except those that are divisible by 400.

1900 was not a leap year but 2000 was a leap year (the number 2000 is divisible by 400).

Leap years are used in our calendar so that our calendar years stay aligned with the rotation of the earth around the sun.

Example 3

Does August have 30 or 31 days?

Solution

August is on top of the mountain (knuckle), so it has 31 days.

Example 4

How many days does November have?

Solution

November is in the valley (between the knuckles), so it has 30 days.

Example 5

Zed turned 5 years old on April 11th, 2012. On what date was he born?

Solution

To find the date when Zed was born, Subtract 5 from the year 2012.

Zed was born April 11^th, 2007.

Example 6

Tia was born on September 20th, 2011 and her brother Benjamin was born on December 20th, 2013. How much older is Tia than Benjamin (express in months and years).

Solution

If we subtract 2 years from December 20^th, 2013, we get December 20^th, 2011.

December 20^th, 2013 - 2 years = December 20^th, 2011.

September falls 3 months before December.

So, Tia is 2 years and 3 months older than Benjamin.