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 and thus helps us time ourselves.
Do you also want to learn how to read a calendar to keep a track of the dates? So let's get started to learn in detail about reading a calendar, months, leap year, week, time and, days of the week with the concepts, the solved examples, and the practice questions on this page.
| 1. | What is a Calendar? |
| 2. | Reading a Calendar |
| 3. | Days in Each Month |
| 4. | Leap Year |
| 5. | FAQs on Reading a Calendar |
What is a Calendar?
A calendar is a chart or series of pages that shows the days, weeks, and months of a particular year. A normal year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days is divided into 12 months. Given below are the names of 12 months of the year:
| Months in a Year |
| January |
| February |
| March |
| April |
| May |
| June |
| July |
| August |
| September |
| October |
| November |
| December |
Further, the 7 days are organized as a week, and there are 10080 minutes in a week. There are 168 hours in a week. Given below are the names of 7 days of the week:
| Days of the Week |
| Monday |
| Tuesday |
| Wednesday |
| Thursday |
| Friday |
| Saturday |
| Sunday |
We use a calendar to keep a record of important events such as festivals, anniversaries, etc., in the form of dates. The format of a date is given below:
- DD denotes the days of the month. It can be 01-31 in two digits.
- MM denotes the months of the year. It can be 1-12 in two digits.
- YY denotes the last two digits of a year.
Minutes in a week.
Thus, for the year 2021, it would be 21 and for the year 2022, it would be 22.
Reading a Calendar
By reading a calendar, we can know about the current year, month, and day. We can keep ourselves aware of and prepared for future events and their respective dates accordingly. Thus, we can keep track of the days, weeks, months, and years.
Suppose you want to know the day on which Christmas fell in the year 2021?
- Open the calendar for the year 2021.
- Open the December page.
- Mark December 25.
- Following the column upwards we can see that Christmas was on Saturday.
Days in Each Month
A year has 12 months. It starts with the month of January and ends with the month of December. It is very important to remember the number of days in a month. There are months with 31 days, 30 days, and even with 28/29 days. Let's have look at the table given below:
| January | 31 days |
| February | 28/29 days |
| 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 |
Leap Year
A Leap year is a year when an extra day, referred to as a leap day(February 29) is added to the shortest month, February. To keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the Sun, leap days are needed. The Earth takes approximately 365.242189 days or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds – to complete one revolution around the Sun referred to as a tropical year.
A leap year has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days and occurs almost every four years.
How do we know whether a year is a leap year?
Divide the year by 4. If it is fully divisible by 4, it is a leap year. For example,2020 is divisible by 4, thus it is a leap year with a February of 29 days.
An Exception to the rule: A Century Year!
Century years like 300, 700, 1900, 2000, and many like these need to be divided by 400 to check whether they are leap years or not. For example, a century year like 2000 is divisible by 400, so it is a leap year. However, a Century year like 1900 is not divisible by 400, thus it is not a leap year, even though it is divisible by 4.
Important Points
- A normal year is equal to the time taken by Earth to complete one orbit around the Sun. Numerically, it is equal to 365 days and 6 hours.
- In the period of 4 years, 6 hours becomes 24 hours = 1 extra day.
- This extra day added to the calendar once every four years to form a leap year of 366 days.
FAQs on Reading a Calendar
What is the Meaning of Calendar?
A calendar is a chart or series of pages that shows the days, weeks, and months of a particular year.
How Many Days are there in a Year?
There are 365 days in a normal year and 366 days in a leap year.
Which is the First Calendar in History?
The Sumerian calendar dated back to the bronze age is the oldest calendar. dependent on the development of writing in the ancient Near East. The Sumerian calendar was the earliest, followed by the Egyptian, Assyrian and Elamite calendars.
What are the Calendar Months Named After?
The first calendar, the Roman year calendar, which was ascribed to the legendary king Romulus, had ten months. The king named the first month, Martius, after his own father, Mars, the god of war. The months-September, October, November, and December are named after Roman numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10, which were originally the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the Roman year. The months- July and August were renamed after Roman rulers, they were called Quintilis and Sextilis, which meant fifth and sixth months.
How do you use the calendar to teach sequencing time?
A calendar can be a great visual tool to help children learn about time and also the sequencing concepts such as, before, after, first, last, next, month, day, year, week, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and until.
How Many Days Are in a Month Trick?
One of the great tricks is counting on the knuckles of one's hand. According to which, knuckles signify 31 days, depressions between knuckles signify 30 (or 28/29) days.