Teach calendar

这个数字代表我最喜欢的团体。这个团体有13个人。13 represents the group I like, there are 13 members in this group.

我很喜欢这个数字因为这是我的特别的日子。I like this number because this is my special date.

我喜欢9号因为9是永远。今天8号，明天是9号，我希望明天来。和明天是我和我男朋友一个星期纪念日。 I like number 9 because 9 is forever. Today is 8th, tomorrow is 9th, I wish tomorrow come(soon). Tomorrow is one week anniversary day of me and my boyfriend.

9月3号是星期五。我很喜欢星期五，因为我没有课第二天。三号还是我的喜欢号。我常常有幸运事儿。September 3rd is Friday, I like Friday, because I don't have school the next dat. Number 3 is also my favorite number. I always have lucky things.

Dates are very confusing, especially when you ask what's the date( 今天几号？）and what's the day of the week today( 今天星期几？）It's hard because there are a lot of numbers involved as well.I used our school calendar to introduce different days and dates, it didn't work very well, and students got a bit lost in the end with information overwelmed.
I saw a woman did an amazing calendar online; she draws beautiful pictures for individual dates. I decided to use similar ideas in class, make it simple, clear and fun. I prepared a bunch of half A4 size papers with different colors. I asked students to pick a date and a piece of color paper they like. They have to draw the date big and clear, then they need to write something special about it in Mandarin, ex: Sep 22nd this year is mid-autumn day, so kid who picked the date needs to write that on her paper. Most of them wrote something like: this is my lucky number, this is my birthday number, etc. Some kids really surprised me with their ideas.
Kids built a strong feeling about different dates while they do the art work; the dates start to become meaningful to them. I asked them to put all the dates in order by the white board. I used it a lot during and after that unit by simply ask them questions like: What's the date today（今天几号）? Whose date is it today（今天是谁的）? Who has Mondays（谁有星期一）? This Tuesday is whose（这个星期二是谁）? etc.

I have to say there are many girls in these two mandarin 2 classes, they love doing art work, I'm not very sure whether it will apply to boys as much as it does to girls.