Time and Dates

A year is the average time it takes the earth to go once round the sun. There are 12 months or 52 weeks or 365 days in a year. Every four years there is a leap year. It has 366 days. We all know the names of the months, but not all of us can quite remember how many days there are in each month. There is a little poem to help.

Thirty days has September,

April, June and November.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Excepting February alone,

Which has but twenty-eight days clear,

And twenty-nine in each leap year.

There are seven days in a week, 24 hours in a day, 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour. We probably have 60 because 60 was a very important number to the people who lived in ancient Babylon, a land from which many of our ideas came.

There are seven days in a week. The seven days of the week are named in honor of the sun, the moon and five of the planets. Sunday is the sun’s day, Monday is the moon’s day, Tuesday is Mars’ day, Wednesday is Mercury’s day, Thursday is Jupiter’s day, Friday is Venus’ day and Saturday is Saturn’s day.

The planets were named after Roman gods and goddesses. The beginning of the day is dawn or daybreak, then comes morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night. We can’t change the length of the day. It is made for us by turning of the earth on its axis. The sun rises in the east in the morning and sets in the west in the evening.

We know that the time is not the same all over the world. For this reason, the world has been divided into time zones. All the places in each zone have the same time. It is called standard time.

Natural Phenomena in Weather and Seasons

There are four seasons in a year: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Every season is beautiful in its own way.

When spring comes nature awakens from its long winter sleep. The days become longer and the nights become shorter. The ground is covered with emerald-green grass and the first flowers. The air is fresh, the sky is blue and cloudless, and the sun shines brightly. The trees are in full blossom. The nightingale begins to sing its lovely songs, and sweet melodies may be heard from every wood and park. The days are warm and everything is full of life and joy.

Spring is followed by summer. The weather is usually fine in summer, but it can be very hot, especially in July. Sometimes there are storms with thunder and lightning. In summer people try to get away from the city noise and spend more time in the open air. They pick mushrooms and berries in the forest, swim in the rivers and lakes, go fishing and boating. Most people prefer to have their holidays in summer.

Autumn begins in September. The days become shorter and the nights become longer. The leaves turn yellow, red and brown and fall to the ground. Most birds fly away to warm countries. There is a short spell of dry sunny weather in September, which is called ‘Indian Summer’. It is a beautiful time when the sky is cloudless, the trees around are golden, the air is transparent and it is still warm. But gradually it gets colder and colder. It often rains in October and November which makes autumn an unpleasant season.

In winter the sun sets early and rises late. The rivers and lakes are frozen over. Everything is covered with snow. Sometimes it is very cold, about 25-30 °C below zero. Going out in such weather isn’t pleasant. Winter is a good time for sports. People go in for skating and skiing. Tobogganing is also popular, not as a kind of sports, but rather as a fun.

As for me, I like all seasons, but I think there is nothing like late spring.