Count Down

Goal: Figure out how long until a special event

1. Start the countdown

Build excitement about a special event, such as a birthday, holiday, or field trip, by running a countdown.

Using a calendar, help children identify both today’s date and the date of the special event.

2. Count the days

Children use the calendar to count the number of days they must wait.

For more challenge, they find answers in different ways. If it’s January 20 and the special day is February 21, they could find:

•  the number of days (32 days)
•  the number of weeks (e.g. 4 1/2 weeks)
•  the number of weeks and days (4 weeks, 3 days)
•  the number of months and days (1 month 1 day)

3. Continue the countdown

As the special day approaches, count down every day.

Variations

My Own Countdown (Grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4)

Each child picks a personal special event, such as a birthday or performance, or a target date for a fitness goal and counts down.

When Do We Eat? (Grades 3, 4)

When children are cooking, they keep track of how many minutes left until something comes out of the oven or freezer.

Counting Hours, Minutes, and Seconds (Grades 3, 4)

Children find how much longer until an event or activity several hours or less than an hour away.  For instance, on Monday, they can figure out how many hours until the weekend and count down the remaining hours each day.

 

Books and Other Resources

Ten, Nine, Eight (Grades K, 1, 2)
Bang, Molly. (NY: Mulberry Books, 1991). Also available in Spanish as Diez, nueve, ocho. NY: Greenwillow Books. 1997.

Fresh and Fun: Calendar Activities (Grades K, 1, 2)
Freitag, Jan Armstrong. NY: Scholastic, 2000.

Spotlight

Using calendars

Counting down helps children become familiar with basic units of calendar time—days, weeks, and months. As they use calendars to find and compare dates that are meaningful to them, they also practice with:

•  the structure of a week (7 days)

•  the order of the days of the week

•  the number of days in each month

•  the number of weeks and extra days in a month

•  the order of the months

Connections

Weekly and monthly planning

Planning and scheduling are part of many jobs. Wedding, party, and conference planners keep track of and coordinate events. Managers plan how much a group of people can accomplish in a given amount of time, and they need to check on progress at midway points.

In daily life, keeping track of time is important for figuring out how long you have left to memorize lines for a play, learn a piece of music for a concert, train for an athletic event, or study for a final exam.

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