Mathematics, Measurement (includes Time), Problem Solving

Grade 5- 8

Objective

Students use a calendar to solve math problems.

Directions

Show students a calendar in the classroom or the calendar shown below. Tell them that this is a typical calendar for one month:

Sun.	Mon.	Tue.	Wed.	Thur.	Fri.	Sat.
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

There are always seven days in a week. A week will often continue on to the next month. Any day of the week--such as a Sunday--is always seven days after the previous Sunday and seven days before the next Sunday.

These months have 30 days:
April	June	September	November

These months have 31 days:
January	March	May	July	August	October	December

(Note: February has 28 days except leap year when it has 29 days.)
Years
Look at the following information about years:

1 year = 12 months	1 year = 365 days	100 years = 1 century
1 year = 52 weeks	10 years = 1 decade	1,000 years = 1 millennium

Leap Years

• Leap years are scheduled every four years on years ending with a multiple of 4. Leap years usually coincide with presidential election years in the United States.
• A leap year has 366 days. Leap years are not scheduled for the first year of a century unless the year is divisible by 400. The year 2000 is evenly divisible by 400 and thus is a leap year. The year 1900 is not evenly divisible by 400 and thus was not a leap year.

Recent and Future Leap Years
1992	1996	2000	2004	2008

Have them use the calendar to solve the problems on the activity sheet.

Resources

• Calendar Computation activity sheets
• pencils