What is a MONTH?
Look at the Moon. Every night it looks a little bit different.
It takes the Moon about 30 nights to walk all the way around the Earth.
We call that one walk a month.
Did you know? “Month” and “Moon” sound like brothers — because they are! Long ago, people counted the Moon’s nights to know the date.
The little white moon up there? It is walking. One walk = one month.
How long is a month?
A month is built out of smaller pieces of time. Let’s climb the ladder.
1 minute
= 60 seconds
a grown-up bath is about 10 minutes.
1 hour
= 60 minutes
two trips around this clock = 1 day.
1 day
= 24 hours
wake up → brush teeth → school → play → bath → bed. That is one day!
1 week = 7 days
5 school days ✏️ + 2 play days ⚽
1 month ≈ 4 weeks
= about 30 days
seconds since you
opened this page
a month has 2,592,000 seconds!
0.001% of a month
Today is…
Tuesday
Today is …
We are 3 days into this month.
The year is a book with 12 pages.
A year has 12 months. Scroll down — the picture on the left changes with you. Tap a page to keep it.
Month Mountains
Make a fist. Look at the bumps on your knuckles. Every high bump = 31 days. Every dip = 30 days. February hides in the first dip — only 28!
Who is hiding in the names?
Grown-up Romans! Almost every month is named after a Roman god, a Roman boss, or a Roman number.
How far PAST is your birthday?
Your birthday starts your new year. Every month that goes by after it is one month past. Let’s count yours!
When were you born?
■ your birthday ■ months already past ■ this month
Are you a Month Master?
Ready?
stars you have won
Tap a star to hear the answer.
How to use this with a six-year-old
- Tap any 🔊. The page reads itself out loud in a kid’s voice. Turn on read to me in the top bar and it reads each part as you arrive.
- Do the one-minute sit still. Sixty seconds of nothing is the fastest way to feel how long time actually is. Then ask: how many of those fit in a month?
- Go outside tonight and find the Moon. Then come back and slide the night slider to tonight’s date. It is the same Moon.
- Use your real fist for the Month Mountains. The knuckle trick works on hands, not screens.
- Ask “what comes next?” all week — in the car, at breakfast, in the bath. Next month, next day of the week, next year.
Two honest notes
1. A month is really 29.5 nights of Moon, so the calendar months (30 or 31 days) are the Moon’s month with a coat of paint on. The Moon also takes 27.3 days to actually circle the Earth. Close enough for a six-year-old — and true enough for later.
2. All the seasons here are upside-down if you live in the southern half of the planet. June is snow where June is snow. Swap the pictures and everything else still works.