I came up with this question when I saw just such a calendar in one of my teacher’s rooms in the 5th grade. I guess I can also tell you that was 40 years ago.
Consider the symbolic picture calendar. Every month shows you a picture you associate with that month. January is the first and coldest month. So that is the picture it shows. February has Valentine’s Day. Ditto. March is the beginning of Spring and St. Patrick’s Day (and is allegedly windy). April is allegedly rainy. May has flowers. June begins Summer. July is the hottest and has the fourth. September begins school and Fall. October is Halloween. November is Thanksgiving. And December begins Winter and Christmas.
So how do you represent August? What makes August unique among the year? And what should represent it? I trust you see the problem.
Kind of depends a little on your background and where you want to sell you calendars. Generically, I would suggest “fun in the sun”. Maybe a parent and child fishing from a bridge over a river. Kids floating on inner tubes or riding bikes down dusty back roads.
Around here, the defining image is mile after mile of cornfields.
August is also county fair season for us. Got to be some useful images there.
August? A road full of cars. Half of Europe vacations in July, half in August, and a big chunk of each of those vacations in Spain. The “change of shift*” when July turns to August is always scary.
I made a list of Leslie Meier’s cozy mysteries, and every month had a holiday or event associated with that month except August. So I used “Silver Anniversary Murder,” mostly because it had a capital A in it.
Traditionally it’s the beach (beach ball, sand bucket, etc.) July is more associated with the patriotism of the 4th.
“I Just Called to Say I Love You” has “No harvest moon to light one tender August night”.
I associate August with my birthday, and my birthday with Martin Luther King Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech, since it was given on the day I was born. So I’m good with MLK as a symbol of August as well, although that might be confused with the January holiday for his birthday.
But those are both cities next to oceans or great lakes. As such, their weather is moderated by those large bodies of water. Look at cities out in the heartland, and August is the hottest.
And August is the month for County Fairs, the State Fair, carnivals & festivals. So a picture of them fits the calendar well.
Even if the facts don’t hold up, my brain has always labeled August as the hottest and worst month. Maybe it’s because of humidity. I also associate it with watermelons. Aside from the beach, I would also suggest a large watermelon slice.
If you want to get a little nerdy, it’s when the majority of the perseid meteor shower takes place, so you could also feature that.
