Are you thinking about or in the midst of teaching your kids to tell the time?
Or are you concerned about your child, or even your teen, not being able to tell the time accurately?
Read on to find out why some kids struggle to learn the concept, and how you can help them learn to tell the time with a fantastic Time Teacher watch from Kiddus.
When Should Kids Learn to Tell the Time?
Time is such an arbitrary concept that it can be difficult for young children to come to terms with.
Starting early by discussing concepts such as day and night, then adding in morning, afternoon and evening can help the youngest children get used to the idea of time.
Then you can introduce concepts such as before and after, and begin drawing their attention to an analogue clock and the times you do things.
Introduce the concept of hours and minutes and help kids understand how the hands on a clock move to indicate the passage of time.
You can then use everyday activities such as meal and activity times to begin teaching the concept of time.
In the UK, the National Curriculum states that Year 1 children (ages 5-6) should be able to tell the time to the hour and half hour.
And Year 2 children (ages 6-7) should be able to tell the time on a clock to the nearest 10 minutes.
In the US, math standards state this should be taught in Grades 1 (ages 6-7) and 2 (ages 7-8), so a year later than the UK.
But many children struggle to tell the time and will need extra help, even at older ages.
This is where an educational watch like the time teacher watch comes in.
How Can the Kiddus Time Teacher Watch Help Kids to Learn How to Tell the Time?
Teaching kids to tell the time can be a real challenge and often teachers do not have time to check every child has conquered each concept.
They may use practice clocks with movable hands and worksheets in school, but if this is not backed up with practice at home kids will struggle to completely understand all of the different aspects of telling time.
Telling the time is a developmental process which takes place in stages, and the Kiddus Time Teacher Watch will be with you every step of the way!
This educational watch provides a fun and easy way to help kids learn to tell the time.
Having a clock face with large, clear numbers and easily differentiated hands for seconds, minutes and hours is essential for kids to see how the hands move as time progresses.
Using a visual aid like the Kiddus Time Teacher watch will help them to clearly see these differences and to read the time.
Use the 5 minute increments to count in 5's to the half hour and back from the next hour to reinforce the concept of 'minutes past' and 'minutes to'.
Point to the number 11 and say 'When the minute hand points to 11, this shows it is 55 minutes past the hour but 5 minutes to the next hour'.
With Kiddus watches, kids can see the five minute increments of the hour, as well as having clearly labelled minute and hour hands to help them tell the time, and there is even a smaller 24 hour clock time on the face so kids can begin learning the 24-hour clock too.
The watches are beautifully designed with hardwearing silicone straps in a wide range of gorgeous colours that kids will love.
They even come with fun stickers and a time telling practice sheet to complete with your kids.
The real key to getting all this telling the time information and learning to stick is practice, practice, practice, which will be both fun and easy with their cute new Time Teacher watch!
Why is My Child Struggling with Telling the Time?
Many children will struggle with telling the time and, as it is taught so early in the curriculum, if they miss understanding one concept, they will struggle with the next.
This means a lot of 12 and 13 year olds cannot tell the time using an analogue clock and may even struggle to understand how much time passes or how long time is between events.
In rare cases this may be because of Dyschronometria, but often it illustrates an inability to understand or tell time which has not been picked up on earlier in school.
Often this can be simply because kids are just not used to seeing clocks or traditional watches.
Most parents will use their phone to check the time and maany houses do not have a proper clock on the wall or the mantelpiece these days.
We live in an increasingly digital age, so if yours is a house without any analogue clocks, your child may find it more difficult to tell the time as they are not used to seeing the traditional clock face.
Even teens will benefit from having a time teacher watch from Kiddus to practice with, even if they only use it while they're at home away from their friends!
How Can I Help My Child Learn to Tell the Time?
The ability to tell the time hinges on several aspects of knowledge.
Kids need to know the numbers from 1 to 60, and then to learn that there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in one hour.
This requires key math skills and being able to count in 5's (i.e. the five times table), as well as knowing that 30 is half of 60, and 15 a quarter of 60.
The Time Teacher watch clearly shows these 5 minute increments and will help kids to learn which hand tells what and to translate those pesky 1s, 2s, 3s into 5, 10 and 15 minutes.
An analogue clock visually shows children how to read time, but children still need to be taught how to read all those 1 minutes, 5 minutes etc.
Learning which 'house' or section the minute hand is currently in is made so much easier with this Kiddus Time Teacher watch which represents each with beautiful rainbow colours.
We then use different phrasing such as 'quarter past' the hour, 'twenty-five past'; 'half past' and 'twenty-five to' the hour or 'quarter to'.
These are phrases which simply need to be learned and having a clock face divided up into 5 minute increments can really help kids with this.
Take some time to help them learn how to count forwards and backwards in 5s to make the unique phrasing we use for time stick.
There are lots of ways to encourage your child to use their watch:
Suggest you will do something together in 5 or 10 minutes' time and ask your child when that will be, look at how time passes and have them read the time to you before and after.
Time how long it takes to do 20 jumping jacks, or how long it takes to run around the perimeter of a field.
There are plenty more ideas at Kiddus.
Why is Analogue Time the Most Important?
Kids need to learn not only how to tell time, but also how to solve advanced problems involving time and how much time has or will pass.
This is not easy when you learn digital time first, as most children need to see the analogue clock face and the physical passage of time to understand it.
It is better to introduce anaologue time first and digital time much later, although in modern life, children will be surrounded by digital timepieces more than regular old-style clocks.
So, why do we need to teach anaolgue time before digital time?
When a child learns to read an analogue clock, they learn to differentiate between seconds, minutes and hours.
They can then see the difference between 'twenty past' and 'quarter to' the next hour, for example.
They can clearly see the passage of the second hand around the minute, and the minute hand around a full hour.
Only when they have conquered these concepts, will they then learn that there are 24 hours in one day and can begin to learn the 24 hour clock.
Often called 'military time' in the US, knowing that 14:00 is 2pm etc is essential in learning how to read timetables and used in many professions, from medicine to aviation.
This step by step process from simply learning the hour and the half hour to being able to read a bus timetable is a long process and involves complex cognitive skills developed over time.
The time teacher watch enables children to work through these many stages with your guidance and means they will become competent at telling time, an essential skill which many of their peers will still be struggling with.
Buy the Time Teacher Watch direct from Kiddus or from Amazon.
Post sponsored by Kiddus