Reading a monthly calendar

General

Students learn to recognize the parts of a monthly calendar and can read a calendar.

Standards

PreCCSS.Math.Content.K

Learning objective

Students will be able to read calendars.

Introduction

Ask students to name the months that they already know. Then ask students if they can fill in the missing month between January and March. Then ask students if they know which month school starts.

Instruction

Tell students that calendars, and being able to read calendars is important. Show the monthly calendar. Explain that you can read at the top which month it is. This example is April. Then show the days of the month. April has 30 days. Explain to students that there are some months that have 31 days, and that February usually has 28 days. Tell students that some calendars have lighter numbers at the end of a calendar that belong to the next month, but they are not a part of April. (They also restart at 1 which shows them it is a new month.) Explain that the calendar also shows the days of the week. Show students where they can find all of the Monday's. Ask students if they can determine the dates that Tuesdays fall on. Then practice these skills with a set of calendars in which you can review these calendar reading skills.

Check that students are able to read a monthly calendar by asking the following question:
- What are the different things you can read on a monthly calendar?

Quiz

Students are given 10 problems in which they must give the day, date, or month of a given calendar. They are also asked to find the next day, the day before, or the day after a given date.

Closing

Discuss the importance of reading a monthly calendar. To close the lesson tell students that the calendar has exploded and the need to help put things right again. Ask students to drag the colored circles to the dates they belong on.

Teaching tips

Students who have difficulty with this learning goal can be supported by repeating the steps one at a time, first of recognizing months, then days of the week, and dates of the individual days. Students can work in pairs by naming a date and that their partner must find it on the calendar.