Monday is the anniversary of the birthday of our country.  Do you have big plans?  Are you going to finally get some much-deserved rest?  I will spend the day with every television we own on, at full volume, to help drown out the noise of the fireworks in our neighborhood.  They scare my dogs to pieces.

The 4th of July is an opportunity to talk about ordinal numbers with the children in your program.  An ordinal number is one that tells of a position in a sequence.  Therefore, the 4th of July describes the fourth day in the sequence of days in July (the first, the second, the third and then the fourth).

When you talk about this holiday next week with the children, be sure to use this exact math language so that it begins to become familiar and eventually a part of their math vocabulary. Draw a small calendar that only includes the first week of July.  Make 5 squares labeled with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and then show the children that the 4th of July is on the 4th day of the month, after the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  The day after the 4th is the 5th.  Be specific and use the visual cues that the calendar offers.

Remember, any opportunity to revisit these concepts is just that – an opportunity!

Happy Birthday America!