In Kindergarten and First Grade, your child will explore many numbers in the world around her. She will do calendar activities in her class to help learn the days of the week, and eventually the months of the year as well. This may be one of your child’s first opportunities to explore how we keep track of time. Has your child ever had an exciting event that she was anxiously awaiting, and you told her that it was in 3 days, and she asked you, “How long is that?” You may have tried to explain it by telling her how many “sleeps” it was, because that is something she can count. Help your child understand the concept of a day as she learns the days of the week and the months of the year.
One Day
Talk to your child about her day. Ask her what she does when she first wakes up in the morning. Write down her ideas. She might say that she gets dressed, makes her bed, eats breakfast, brushes her teeth, and so on. Continue walking through a typical day, and write down her ideas. Be sure to tell her that all these things happen in one “day”.
Days of the Week
Once your child has a good understanding of the concept of one day, tell her that we have 7 different names for the days, and together the 7 days make up what we call a “week”. Tell her the names of the days of the week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Show her on a calendar how Sunday is the start of the week, and Saturday is the end of the week.
My Schedule
Print a blank calendar for your child to have her own calendar. Help her number the dates on her calendar. You will have to help her by putting the “1” on the appropriate day of the week for your current month. Next, talk to her about activities that she does on certain days. For example, if she goes to piano lessons every Tuesday, mark that on the Tuesday squares on her calendar. If she goes to soccer on Saturdays, mark that on all the Saturdays, and so on. Each day, look at the calendar with your child so she can begin to see how each day is related to an entire week.
The Month
When you get to the end of the month, ask your child how many days were in the whole month. She may count the numbered squares, or look at the last numbered square. Tell her that most months have either 30 or 31 days, and that February is a special month that usually has 28 days, but sometimes it even has 29 days! Print off another blank calendar and begin a new month’s calendar.
Months of the Year
Here is a little song you can teach your child to help learn the months of the year in order. It is sung to the tune of “10 Little Indians”: January, February, March and April, May, June, July and August, September, October, November, December, those are the months of the year!
WANT MORE?
- As always, playing math games at home is a great way to reinforce math skills learned in school.
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