Hi John, 
A work order with Recurrence type = Series will not show up on the calendar. Only Occurrences and One Time recurrence would show.  The reason for this is that a series is a holder of all general occurrence information, but it not an appointment itself. 
So to paint a picture so you understand how to input the work orders.  If you are creating a daily Recurrence for 3 days starting today, then you must input the start date as June 17th and end date June 19th.  That way the 3 work orders that are created would have Recurrence type = Occurrence.  Please let me know if this helps.