Telling Time

Eli, who is four and the ever-so-important-half, has expressed an interest in time. He showed interest a year or so ago, but I thought it was important that he could count to sixty and understand what he was looking at. Today I brought out a broken clock I had been saving for quite some time. The clock itself was about $7 at Walmart. I'm sure you could find something super duper cheapo at a Salvation Army, flea market or yard, garage or tag sale.

My boys are very tactile learners. They love anything hands-on. Knowing this, we started out by taking apart the clock. I had lost the screw that kept the hands together and the battery pack. We took the plastic cover off. I also found an old drawer pull that could serve as the piece that kept the hands together. I had to make a couple adjustments and make the hole in one of the hands bigger and it was done. We talked about the minute, second and hour hands. I had the boys touch the numbers and count the hours and seconds. They held the different parts in their hands and pretended to tell time themselves.

I then made a copy of the face of the clock by simply tracing it onto construction paper...blue, Eli's favorite. I omitted numbers. This is so we could go back and talk about what numbers belong. I made one with the numbers in the incorrect places. I made one with just marks instead of numbers. We have a working clock on our kitchen wall with Roman Numerals, so I thought interpreting the spaces would be useful. We'll cover Roman Numerals on a different day.

Today's talk about time and the clock ended after they played with the different parts. Then we were off to play Chutes and Ladders.