Kids ASK! about Anything & Everything

“The time required for the Earth to travel once around the Sun is about 365 1/4 days. This fractional number makes necessary the periodic intercalation of days in any calendar that is to be kept in step with the seasons. In the Gregorian calendar a common year contains 365 days, and every fourth year (with a few exceptions) is a leap year of 366 days.”

Source: “year.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition. 9 October 2008 .

For more information, here are some recommended library books on calendars and time:

All about the months by Joanne Randolph
Publisher: New York : PowerKids Press, 2008
Call No.: J P 529 RAN

Time to learn about weeks & months by Pam Scheunemann
Publisher: Edina, MN : ABDO Pub., c2008
Call No.: J P 529 SCH

At school : telling time by the half hour by Alice Proctor
Publisher: Pleasantville, N.Y. : Weekly Reader, 2008, c2007
Call No.: J P 529 PRO

Telling time with puppies and kittens by Patricia J. Murphy
Publisher: Berkeley Heights, NJ : Enslow Publishers, 2008
Summary: What time is it? People ask this question many times every day and now you will be able to answer them! Learn how to look at analog and digital clocks and make sense of them. What do the different hands on the clock mean? What is the difference between A.M. and P.M.? Includes puppy and kitten photos throughout the book.
Call No.: J P 529 MUR

You can also visit these websites for more information on calendars and leap years:

1) “There are 365. 2422 days in a solar year — 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds.”

“Ours is a solar calendar in which a year is the time required for the earth to complete its annual orbit around the sun. A day is the time required — 24 hours — for the earth to make one complete revolution on its axis. The necessity for leap years stem from the fact that there are almost 365-1/4 days in a year. Consequently the common years have 365 days but every fourth one which is exactly divisible by 4, such as 1964, is a leap year with 366 days including 29 in February instead of 28.”
Source: Newton BBS (n.d.).Leap Year. Website: www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/700-799/nb745.htm, last accessed 9 October 2008.
Homepage: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/

2) “The principal astronomical cycles are the day (based on the rotation of the Earth on its axis), the year (based on the revolution of the Earth around the Sun), and the month (based on the revolution of the Moon around the Earth).”
Source: L. E. Doggett. (n.d.). Calendars. Website: http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html, last accessed 9 October 2008.
Homepage: http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/dept/xhtml/frontpage.top.shtml

All websites were last accessed on 9 October 2008. Please check the websites’ homepages for the terms and conditions of use. All book summaries were taken from the book descriptions. All images were extracted from www.amazon.com.

For the availability of the above book titles, please check the library catalogue.

Answered by Ms Chew Siew San
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

Posted by Ms Elizabeth Lee
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

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