DATES
What's the date today?

Objective

To introduce days and months.

Goals

• To read calendars.
• To read and write dates in numbers and words.
• To ask and respond to questions regarding days, months and dates.

Suggestions

• Notice the abbreviations for days on appointment cards and calendars (e.g. Sunday, Sun, S).
• It can be helpful but very confusing to teach ordinal numbers. If the learner is ready, try beginning with just 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
• Calendar dates can be particularly confusing for people following the lunar calendar.
• Learners sometimes don't know their or their children's birth dates. Canadians place much more importance on birthdays than do other cultures. If someone isn't sure of their date of birth upon arrival in Canada, they are usually given a date of birth. Be sensitive to this in your interactions with learners regarding birth dates.
• Learners need to be able to respond both in writing and orally to questions regarding date of birth and arrival in Canada.
• Collect items with dates on them. i.e., 'best before' dates, expiry dates, due dates, late payment dates, stamps, etc.
• Look at flyers to see their effective dates.

Activities

• Write the days on large card or paper. Give one card to each learner. Ask them to line up so the days are in order. Exchange cards and do it again.
• On cards write verbs that learners are familiar with. Ask learners to match the verbs with the days they do those things. Learners can eventually copy the words and create a story about their weekly activities.
• White out the first letter in each day or month, learners write the letter in the blank.
• Have number cards 1-12. Match the months with the number cards.
• Have a year calendar. On a separate paper, write the names of the months. Ask learner to refer to the calendar and write how many days are in each month. You could also do this activity in pairs, giving one learner half of the months and the other learner the other half of the months. They ask each other how many days are in each month.
• Practice 'How many' questions (e.g. How many days are in a week? How many days are in a month? How many days are in February? How many days are in a year? How many weeks are in a month? How many weeks are in a year? How many months are in a year?).
• Look at a calendar for this year. Find the dates for various holidays. Give the learner the names of a few holidays and learner writes the date.
• Write the months on a paper. Learners ask each other, 'When is your birthday?' Learners write people's names beside or under the month in which they were born.
• Practice writing dates that are important to the learner such as his birthday, landing date in Canada, children's birthdays, etc.
• Ask learners about important dates in their countries. Ask learners to write these important dates.
• Instructor folds the day or month card to show only the abbreviation. Learner reads the card.