This is a huge set of worksheets that tie-in with each calendar month of the year. They are organized below in chronological order for you to print! Three hundred sixty-five days are not enough to give every historical memorial, awareness campaign, birthday celebration, holiday, and traditional event their own day (leap years don't even help), so each month is packed end to end with commemorations and festivities from around the world. These worksheet sets contain many different types of activities-such as reading short passages, crossword puzzles, checklists, and more-highlighting particular events of note in each month. We recommend using these worksheets each and every month where you would like to add some excitement in your class.
Months of the Year Worksheet Categories
Click the buttons to be transported to all the worksheets for that month.
January
Eyewear month, New Year's Day, We explain why this month starts the year, The Importance of Ellis Island, The End of the Revolutionary War
February
Groundhog Day, Valentines Day, Presidents, All about Grapefruit, Clean out your computer day, How Does a Battery Work?, History of Kites, Children's Dental Month, Brains, Weather People.
March
The Red Cross, Dr. Seuss, The Star Spangled Banner, Boston Massacre, The Dred Scott Decision, Telephones, The Eiffel Tower, Bubble Gum, National Peanut Month, and Coca Cola.
April
Topics of the worksheets include: April Fool's Day, Autism Month, Stress, Rainbows, History of Libraries, Patent Day, The Titanic, Income Tax, Paul Revere, Arbor Day
May
A wide array of activities that include: Lewis and Clark, National Stuttering Awareness Week, History of Bicycles, Sports Month, Rhinoceros Week, What is the sun?, Cinco de Mayo, The Pulitzer Prize, Mother's Day, and Memorial Day
June
The topics include: The National Safety Council, The Great Barrier Reef, Farm to Table, Refugee Week, World Environment Day, Little League Baseball World Series, Paul Bunyan, The National Organization of Women, National Teacher's Day, Road Safety Week
July
Students have a nice mix of reading worksheets that include the themes: Independence Day, National Hot Dog Eating Contest, National Mailman Day, Cloning Month, Duel Day, Bastille Day, The FBI Origination, NASA Day, The Greatest Show on Earth
August
Elvis Presley, The History of Clowns, MTV (Music Television), The US Coast Guard, Why Are So Few People Left-handed?, History of Roller Coasters, Eye Sight, The First World War, The Berlin Wall, The Panama Canal
September
World War II, The Largest Skyscrapers, Uncle Sam, Who Invented the Pizza?, Labor Day, American Literacy, Nintendo, The Supreme Court, The Irish Potato Famine, Why Does the School Year Begin in September?
October
Topics for this month include: Dinosaur Week, Electricity Week, Health Weekend, The History of Denim, World Habitat Day, Captain Kangaroo, The Great Chicago Fire, The History of the Dictionary, United Nations Day, The Statue of Liberty
November
Who Invented Basketball?, X-ray machines, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, Diabetes, Who Invented the Sandwich?, King Tut, The Gettysburg Address, William Tell, Vietnam Veterans Memorial
December
Walt Disney's birthday, Hovercraft month, Cold places, Boxing Day, AIDS month, Quit Smoking month, Pearl Harbor, Many Different December Holidays, Christmas trees, the Louisiana Purchase,
Why Are There Twelve Months in A Year?
Months have been a part of this universe for a very long time. In different calendars or old civilizations, the months have been integral to the system. Why must they not be? These are a measure of time that has passed and the time that is yet to come.
The story starts with moon cycles which were used to divide a year. However, the moon cycle, an odd number, cannot divide a year evenly. In 738 BC, a ten-month calendar was taken from the Greeks.
The names of the original months were Martius (March), Aprilis (April), Maius (May), Junius (June), Quintilis ( July), Sextilis (August), September, October, November, and December. The last six months are just named after 5,6,7,8,9,10.
The concept of January and February
However, the major issue was that there were still 60 unaccounted days. The two months named Januarius and Februarius were added to the calendar. In 46 BC, Julius Ceaser omitted the moon concept and started the day calendar with 12 months with alternate 30 and 31 day months and giving February 28 days. However, the concept of a leap year was introduced to account for the odd number of days.
Quintilis and Sextilis
To honor Julius Ceaser after his untimely death, Quintilis was renamed July. Similarly, Sextilis was changed to August after Augustus Ceaser.
Conversion to Gregorian Calendar
The Julian Calendar was used until 1582, but it had many leap days. A new calendar with ten days less than the Julian Calendar was invented in Pope Gregory XIII’s reign. The leap day now occurred every four years, in which 29 days of February were kept.
The official adoption of the new calendar wasn’t done until 1927, when all the countries switched to Gregorian Calendar. The reason for this was the inability of the Julian Calendar to keep up with the changing seasons and lengths, which created more discrepancies. When Gregorian and Julian Calendar variations increased, many countries had to skip several days to switch to Gregorian.
Some countries skipped 11 days, like the US, Canada, and the UK, while some countries like Turkey had to skip 13 days.
Issues Due To Conversion
The Leap year system was deeply affected by the change. In 1712, Sweden and Finland had double leap years because both calendars could not fit in the days.
Here’s a fun fact! 1712 had an additional day in February. It happened only once, but the date said 30th February.
Since it took 300 years for the transition to happen, the world followed two different calendars.
Tip to Learn The Number of Days in Each Month
Children find it difficult to remember which month has how many days. You can count the months on knuckles and dips between them; a knuckle will represent a 31-day month while a dip will give the name of 30 day month.
Learning the history of time is confusing because a lot of changes occurred. You can still convert this date from Gregorian to Julian by subtracting 13 days.
How Did the Months of the Year Get Their Name?
We have different methods of measuring time. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, dates, years, and even months! We know that there are 12 months in a year, but do you know where they got their names from? Let's take a look, shall we!
Like most of the things that have been handed down to own from our ancestors, most of the names of the months are the creations of the Romans and Greeks! Here's a fun fact! Did you know that before a proper calendar was created, the Romans year started with March and ended in February! How weird is that! Thankfully, today our calendar goes the right way around! Let's see where each month got its name from:
January gets its name from the Roman God, Janus.
February got its name from after an ancient Roman festival of purification called Februa.
The month of March is named after the Roman God, Mars.
April is originated from the Latin word, aperire, which means ‘to open.'
May is named after the Greek Goddess, Maia.
June got its name from the Roman God, Juno.
The months of July and August are named after the Roman empire's most renowned statesman, Julius Caesar, and their first emperor, Augustus.
September, October, November, and December get their names from the Roman numbers 7, 8, 9, and 10.
Isn't that wonderful!