As the summer sun continues to shine bright and warm, students are gearing up to head back to school for a new academic year. Before the hustle and bustle of a new school year begins, it’s important for teachers to take the time to educate their students on calendar essentials, such as the fact that August is the 8th month of the year.
August is a month filled with fun activities, end-of-summer vacations and for many students, the start of a new school year. With so much going on during the month of August, it’s important for students to understand why this month is significant and why it holds a specific place on the calendar.
To teach students about August being the 8th month of the year, teachers can present a brief historical overview of the calendar. In ancient times, the year was originally divided into 10 months, with the month of January and February not officially added until 713 BC. However, this meant that the year only consisted of 304 days instead of 365 days, and scientists and astrologers realized that the calendar needed to be revamped to coincide with the Earth’s rotation around the sun.
To do this, Julius Caesar commissioned the creation of a new calendar and the implementation of the Julian calendar, which was a solar-based calendar. The Julian calendar had 365 days and added an extra day, known as a leap year, to February in order to account for the Earth’s rotation. In the Julian calendar, August was originally the 6th month of the year, but in 8 BC, the Roman Senate decided to rename the month in honor of Emperor Augustus Caesar, who was born in that month. This renaming did not affect the month’s position in the calendar.
The modern-day calendar, known as the Gregorian calendar, was adopted in 1582 by a decree from Pope Gregory XIII. The Gregorian calendar added an additional leap year rule, which enforced that a year that is evenly divisible by 100 is a leap year only if it is also evenly divisible by 400. This calendar is still used today, and August remains the 8th month of the year.
Teaching students about the significance of August being the 8th month is important to their understanding of the calendar as a whole. It’s also a great opportunity to introduce students to the history of calendars and the advancements that have been made to achieve accuracy in tracking the Earth’s rotation around the sun.
