Days of the School Year

Did you know? The school year for elementary students in Japan usually begins in April and ends in March with vacations and holidays interspersed. Students attend classes full-time during the weekdays and half-time on Saturdays, for a total of 243 days a year.

American students typically attend school from
August to May (or in New York, September through June) with only full-time classes during the weekdays. This equals about 180 days a year!

Project:

 Research to find the number of days of school students attend in two different countries.
o Country Ideas: Germany, England, Mexico, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, China, Brazil, Canada, France, Australia.

 Record the number of days for each country.

 Contrast the number of days between each country.

 Contrast the number of days between each country and the United States.

 Write a comparing paragraph about the differences in days attending school.

 Decide how you want to display your results and your work

Feeling extra fancy? Keep in mind that we go to school for 6 1/2 hours each day — convert our school DAYS into school HOURS and try to figure out how many hours students attend school each year in another country.

Feeling even fancier? Convert everything to MINUTES!

*Remember: 60 minutes = 1 hour