Ordinal date

Ordinal date is a way to tell what day of the year it is by counting the days that have passed since January 1st. Imagine you have a big calendar with all the days of the year in it. Every day that goes by, you color in one square on the calendar. When you get to January 1st, you start counting each colored square until you get to the square for the day you're looking for. This number is called the "ordinal date" because it's the number order of that day in the year.

For example, if it's April 5th, you can count how many days have passed since January 1st by counting all the days in January (31), February (28 or 29), March (31), and then 5 days in April. This comes out to be 96. So April 5th is the 96th day of the year and its ordinal date is 96.

People use the ordinal date for many different reasons, like tracking seasonal changes, scheduling events, or tracking the progress of a project. It's a simple way to keep track of what day you're on in a year!