30 or 31 days in a month?

How many days are in each month? Use your knuckles!

How many days are in a given month? September, 30 or 31? July and August both have 30, right? Many of us grew up reciting the nursery rhyme about the days in each month. My attitude is if you can remember the damn rhyme you can learn the number of days without resorting to the poem as a crutch.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November:
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except for February,
Which hath twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.

My parents taught us a trick. We're all right-handed so we made a fist using our left hand. Knuckles represent 31 days and the valleys between the knuckles are 30 (or 28/29). The neat thing is that once you learned the order of the months you automaticly knew how many days are in each month. Try it and see!

The number of days in each month:

No need for the nursery rhyme!