Time Units and Calendar Facts
Know the number of seconds in a minute and the number of days in each month, year, and leap year
What a learner can do afterwards
- State that there are 60 seconds in a minute
- Name the months and state the number of days in each
- Explain that a leap year has 366 days and occurs every 4 years
1 · Read
You already know that 60 minutes make an hour. Time is built the same way in smaller pieces. Every minute has exactly 60 seconds. Count 'one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi' slowly, and each count is close to one second.
Mia checks her calendar. April has 30 days, but May has 31 days. February usually has only 28 days, the shortest month of all.
'Thirty days has September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one, except February alone.' That rhyme helps you remember which months are long and which are short.
Remember: 60 seconds make a minute, months have between 28 and 31 days, and every four years a leap year adds one extra day.
More to read
How to Figure Out a Leap Year
A year on Earth is really about 365 and a quarter days long, not exactly 365. Those extra quarter days pile up. Every four years, they add up to one whole extra day. We call that special year a leap year. A leap year has 366 days instead of 365. The extra day gets added to February, so February gets 29 days instead of 28. Want to check if a year is a leap year? Try dividing the year by 4. If it divides evenly with nothing left over, it is usually a leap year. For example, 2024 divided by 4 is 506 with nothing left over, so 2024 is a leap year. Leap years keep our calendar matched up with the seasons, so summer stays in summer and winter stays in winter.
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2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
17 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.