What is a better time to learn about a year, seasons, months, and days, but on a New Year's Day!
We started with understanding what is today: the first day of a year. So, we discussed (starting from general to specific): what is a year, a season, a month, a day. We read the Watching the Seasons book (buy here) and talked about the four seasons, and how many months are in each season.
We then talked about a calendar. The Story of Clocks and Calendars (buy here) is a great book on this topic. The book is very detailed with a lot of interesting information.
Some children may not yet realize there are many kinds of calendars, both historical and modern, with many different names and units. This intriguing journey through time and across civilizations offers children the understanding that, for millennia, we human beings have relied on calendars of stone, clay, and wood to tell us when to plant, when to harvest, and when to rest. Engaging illustrations show calendar artifacts, calendar use in historical settings, and diagrams of calendar symbols and systems.
While reading The Story of Clocks and Calendars book, Adrian learned what is century: a hundred years. To make the concept more concrete, we are using Montessori Golden Bead Hundred Square to represent a century (buy here), while individual beads represent a year.
We also read the Four Seasons Book Set (buy here), and talked about the twelve months, and a total number of days in one year – 365! That is how long it takes for our planet Earth to go all the way around the Sun once. We are using the Earth and the Sun from a hand-made wool/organic cotton Solar system Planet set from Etsy (see here). Children had a lot of fun: Julia learned more details (I can wake her up in the middle of the night and she will tell me how many days are in one year:) while Adrian understood the cycle of seasons, and the concept of the Earth traveling around the Sun, to complete one year.
I hope you are having a wonderful first day of the year!
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