Calendar facts for kids

A calendar is a way to organize and keep track of days. It helps us name different periods of time, like days, weeks, months, and years. A date tells you a specific day within this system.

You might also think of a calendar as a physical thing, like a paper chart, that shows these days. Sometimes, a calendar can even be a list of planned events, like a school schedule or a list of important dates.

Calendars often follow the cycles of the sun or the moon. For example, many old calendars were lunisolar calendars. These were mostly based on the moon's cycles but would sometimes add an extra month to stay aligned with the solar year over time.

The word calendar comes from the Latin word calendae. This was the name for the first day of the month in the old Roman calendar. It's related to a word meaning "to call out," because people would "call out" when they first saw the new moon. The Latin word calendarium meant "account book," because people would settle their debts on the first day of each month.

Why Do We Use Calendars?

Calendars are super useful for many reasons! Their main job is to help us identify specific days. This way, we can plan for future events or remember things that have already happened.

Planning Important Events

Calendars help us know when to do things like plant crops or harvest them. They also show us which days are religious or civil holidays. Businesses use calendars to mark when their accounting periods start and end. Calendars also show important legal dates, like when taxes are due or when a contract ends.

Managing Your Schedule

Calendars are great for managing your personal life too. They help you keep track of your work, school, and family plans. Many people use different calendars, like one for business and one for family, to make sure they don't plan too many things at once.

Telling Time Accurately

Calendars are part of a bigger timekeeping system. When you combine a date with the time of day, you can pinpoint an exact moment in time. Modern clocks and devices often show the time, date, and even the weekday all at once!

Different Kinds of Calendars

There are many different calendars used around the world, often linked to different cultures and religions.

• Anno Domini (AD) and Common Era (CE) are ways to number years in the most widely used calendar today.
• The Gregorian calendar is the most common calendar used worldwide. It's based on the Christian tradition.
• The Islamic calendar is used by Muslims and is based on the moon's cycles.
• The Jewish calendar is used by Jewish people and is a lunisolar calendar.

Some days of the week are also important in different religions:

• Friday is a special day for Muslims.
• Saturday is a special day for Jewish people.
• Sunday is a special day for Christians.

Images for kids

• 

  British calendar from 1851, made of gilt bronze and malachite.

• 

  A modern Gregorian calendar from Indonesia for a Catholic church.

• 

  The Equinox seen from an astronomic calendar in Fondachelli-Fantina, Sicily.

• 

  Sun and Moon from Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.

• 

  A calendar of the Qahal from 1831.

• 

  A Hindu almanac (pancanga) from 1871/72, from Rajasthan.

• 

  The Payment of the Tithes (The tax-collector), also known as Village Lawyer, by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

• 

  A calendar from the Petaluma and Santa Rosa Railroad.

See also

In Spanish: Calendario para niños