How to quickly teach a child to understand time by clock? Tips, techniques, exercises

When to start training?

You can learn to navigate in time as early as 2-2.5 years old . At this age, children already notice the change in light and dark parts of the day, the repetition of familiar daily events. You can consolidate learning with polite wishes of good morning and good night. Older children begin to understand categories such as “now”, “later”, “yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow”.

It’s great if by the age of 5 a child is able to determine what time of day it is, distinguishes between seasons, days of the week, and can remember and list what he did in the morning, afternoon and evening. You can begin to get acquainted with the hour hand and dial at the age of six, if the preschooler can count to 12 and distinguish numbers well. A child will be able to understand the function of the minute and second hand even later, when he has mastered counting to 60, or better yet, to 100.

Advertisement

Why do you need to teach your child to tell time?

The ability to manage time is useful not only for adults, but also for children. Children have activities that are tied to the morning, afternoon or evening. Also, since the patience of babies is calculated in minutes, it is useful for them to know how long their mother will talk on the phone; how much they can play, draw or watch cartoons; When should they start putting away their toys and getting ready for lunch?

If children are aware that they have lunch at 2:00 in the afternoon, and they are friends with the clock, then when lunch approaches there will be no whims and scandals, because they haven’t finished playing. If the child does not like to perform some action, it helps to explain that this action is short and will take a few minutes. A person who knows what a few minutes are can tolerate them. This means it will become easier to persuade your child to put away toys or brush his teeth. Knowing the time is also important for studying. To summarize, knowledge of clocks is useful for:

• reducing the number of conflict situations due to the fact that children are not ready for a change in activity;
• increasing the ability to negotiate with a child who has to do unpleasant things because he understands that they take a little time;
• preparation for school and self-study.

Kids love children's watches with funny hands, by which they learn to recognize the specific time. For little ones, this is another toy with which they get accustomed to new information. Usually together with parents.

Where to start learning?

The concepts of “now” and “later” can be explained using many examples. to talk several times during the day in this way: now we will eat, and then we will go for a walk, first watch cartoons, then we will play.

Mark with your baby the signs of morning, afternoon and evening, discuss the events that occur at this time. Plan the next day together, remember the events of yesterday. Buy or draw a beautiful poster that depicts your daily routine.

Before showing the watch to a child, it is necessary to explain the difference between the concepts of “day” and “day”. The baby must realize that in a day, in addition to day, there is also night, evening, and morning. The peculiarity of time to go only forward can be explained in children's photographs. Here the baby is still very small, here he is a little older, and in this one he is quite big. It is impossible to become a baby again and turn back time.

Time: forming basic concepts for the baby

In order for a child to be able to easily name the right hour without outside help, it is necessary to familiarize him with numbers and the basics of simple counting from early childhood. Also, to fully understand what time is, the baby must know the seasons and what a day is.

Seasons

The calendar is where a child’s first acquaintance with time will begin.
Large numbers and bright letters will help arouse the interest of fidgets. Tell your little one how the seasons change each other, complete the explanation with illustrations. Summer, autumn, winter, spring - there are only four seasons, and each of them begins at its own time. You can also circle the birthdays of loved ones, and the baby himself will look forward to each “special” day and count down the time until them. On a note!
Be sure to show your child changes in nature at every time of the year to develop emotional sensations. The Soviet cartoon “Twelve Months” will help you learn information about the seasons.

Times of Day

By studying the seasons, you can simultaneously get acquainted with the day, the change of day and night. There will be no difficulty in learning here, because you can clearly show how the position of the sun changes during the day. Reinforce the topic with questions about what time of day the child gets up, goes for a walk, or meets dad from work.

Advice!

Already now it is worth paying attention to the movement of the dial, indicating each action with time (“we have afternoon tea at 11 o’clock in the afternoon,” “grandmother will come at 5 o’clock in the evening,” etc.).

Hands and clock dial

The first elements that are shown to a child are a dial with bright, large numbers and an hour hand. It is better to use a special training model or make it yourself from thick cardboard or a disposable plastic plate. Explain that you can find out the time by looking at which number the arrow is pointing to. Change the position of the hand on the dial, ask how many hours there will be in a particular position.

Remind yourself that time only moves forward. Tell us about the concept of “clockwise” and its opposite meaning. During the explanation, discuss with your child all the events from the daily routine: what time does he get up, go to kindergarten, eat, and so on.

The second stage is familiarization with the minute and second hands. The second hand is the fastest. The duration of a second is easy for a child to understand: all it takes is clapping your hands. One clap - one second. Draw divisions from one to sixty on the manufactured dial and mark them with numbers. This way the child will clearly understand that there are 60 seconds in a minute.

Advertisement

While the second hand makes a circle around the dial, the minute hand moves just one division. The slowest hand is the hour hand; it takes 12 hours to describe a circle.

Games with clocks

To reinforce the skill of telling time, you can play with a cardboard or plastic dial. Here's how you can play with the clock:

• name the time, and let the child set it on the dial. For example, eight hours and twenty minutes - how will it look on the clock?
• Set the time using the arrows and ask your child to say what time it is.
• Teach your child to tell time at a given interval. For example, set a specific time on a dial and ask your child to move the hands to a position that will be in half an hour... in two hours and fifteen minutes... and so on.

The same games can be played not only on a toy dial, but also on paper. Good luck in mastering time!

Quarter and half hour

It is first easier to understand the relationship between the minute and hour hands using integers. Explain to your child that when the minute hand on the dial is at 12, and the hour hand is pointing to a certain number, then there is exactly as much time as the short hand shows. Show on the layout what 1, 2, 3 o'clock looks like. Change the dial to other indicators and ask your son or daughter what time it is.

Then encourage your child to experiment with the arrows. Together with your baby, talk through the dial readings when the hour and minute hands are in different positions.

The next step is to explain what half an hour and a quarter of an hour are. To do this, highlight half and a quarter of the dial with color. Tell, moving the arrows to the required divisions, what “half past eleven”, “a quarter to two”, “a quarter to three” looks like, or give other examples.

Consultation for parents “How to teach a child to understand the clock”

Natalya Artemova

Consultation for parents “How to teach a child to understand the clock”

How to help your child learn to tell time using a clock with hands? How to teach a child to use a watch? When can you start accustoming your children to such hours? Let's find out!

Surprisingly, but true: in modern conditions, teaching a child to understand a clock with hands has become even more difficult than before. And the thing is that such clocks have practically disappeared from our homes. watches are ubiquitous . However, this does not mean that you should not introduce your child to mechanical watches! The fact is that by understanding the operation of a clock with hands, the child will make a real leap in mathematical development. And it will be possible only if the child truly understands “how time works”

. The dial of a mechanical watch will clearly explain to the child what a second, minute, hour is. In addition, with the help of arrows, the baby will learn about philosophical categories: he will understand that time cannot be turned back, that everything in nature is cyclical.

When can you introduce your child to watches?

As a rule, specialists in preschool education advise creating special situations in which the child is invited to become familiar with the clock, starting from 6-7 years old.

At this age, it is said that it is necessary to develop a sense of time. But this does not mean that the child should not be shown a dial with arrows before.

Quite the contrary! The more often a child sees such a watch , the better. The more often an adult voices the time, the more useful it is for the baby.

understand from this round thing that cartoons will start soon?” And then the child will be completely ready to

make an effort and understand a complex device.

It is important for kids to feel the time. To do this, we can ask them to draw as many as possible in 1 minute.

circles on a piece of paper (check how many you can get if you spend two whole minutes on a task, brush your teeth in three minutes, dance in five minutes.

Time in such situations can be tracked by an hourglass and a clock with hands at the same time.

How to teach a child to use a watch.

Buy or make yourself a bright clock from thick cardboard with

moving arrows and clear numbers. On this layout, the child will be able to practice understanding time . Leave for later the explanation of how much “five to five”

,
“ten to ten”
and
“quarter”
. Just tell your child that the entire circle that the big hand goes through is an hour.

Check with your child in which direction the arrows are moving. Show your baby the little arrow. Tell me she's the one

the main one, because with its help you can find out how many hours it is. Put it on the number 1, ask the child what time it is.

Move the arrow to the next numbers by asking the same question. Set the hand to five o'clock. Ask where she'll go through

hour.

We study minutes. Now it's time to connect the minute hand too! You should immediately pay attention to the difference between the hour and minute hands. Let the child show which arrow is longer. Remember the names of the arrows, as well as which one is the most

"home"

.
Next, you need to tell the child that the clock can show exactly the hour only when the minute hand is at the number 12. Set the dial to the correct time, and let the child say: “Eight o’clock exactly!”
.

Let's move on to studying the division of hours into minutes using the large hand. Now it is important to tell the child that in an hour

The minute hand runs the entire circle, and the hour hand only covers the distance from one number to the other. Explain to your child that the shooter covers this distance in five minutes. Show your child that if the arrow passes two numbers, it takes 10 minutes to do so. If three - then for 15. Show that the circle can be divided in half (with

If necessary, even draw a line with a pencil) – this is half an hour. Divide the dial into 4 parts and explain what the phrase “quarter of an hour”

.

Exercises to teach your child to understand time by the clock .

Using pictures

In order for the baby to remember the sequence of changing periods of the day (morning, afternoon, evening, night), offer him several cards with different images. Each of the objects should be associated with an action at a certain time. For example,

a diary or book will remind you of school, which means the baby will have to answer the question about the time of day with the word “day”

.
As successful objects that clearly characterize a certain period, you can use, for example, a toothbrush (morning, a briefcase (day), a pillow (night, stars (night),
etc.

To better understand the material, ask your child to arrange the cards in the correct sequence.

Playing with words

You can also learn to distinguish between periods of the day orally. For example,

suggest finding a couple of words: day -. (night,

morning. (evening)

.

Or instruct them to determine what is unnecessary from the list: breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, rain, dinner.

Getting to know the clock

But in order for a child to more accurately understand the meaning of time , he needs to be taught that

mean the numbers on the dial, the sequence of movement of the hands and the purpose of dividing the circle into minutes and hours . To get acquainted, take an alarm clock in the simplest design with large and clearly drawn numbers. Shooters must

differ from each other and, preferably, have a different shape. Show how they move and explain their relationship to each other.

Making a watch

To teach a child to understand time by a clock , it is advisable to make a model of a clock with your own hands or purchase it at a children's toy store. Invite your child to make original hands that are different from each other, decorate the dial with pictures,

Meaning a particular period of time. The best option would be to make two watches for different periods of the day.

-day and night. On one there will be

for example, pictures of the rising sun (morning - from 9.00 to 10.00, brightly glowing (day - from 12.00 to 17.00)

and setting beyond the horizon in a crimson glow (evening - from

18.00 to 21.00). On another layout, you can depict a baby with a pillow (evening - from 21.00 to 00.00, stars (night - from 00.00 to 5.00, a plate of porridge or an athlete with dumbbells (morning - from 6.00 to 9.00)

. The numbers must be designated from 0 to 24. Later the child

will automatically associate 1.00 with 13.00, etc. As a material for making crafts, use thick cardboard of different shades - light and dark.

Make the arrows more durable and secure them to a central rotating device (for example, a bolt with a washer)

.
It is best to make everything at once - the hour, the minute, and the second. watch at hand , you can proceed to
other tasks.

Definition of time

Set a specific time on a homemade dial and ask your child to name it. Let him also remember what he is doing during the specified period. Do several of these practice exercises. Don't forget to specify what time of day we are talking about. Therefore, using two different manufactured dials makes more sense. In the future, having become familiar with the purpose of the minute hand, the baby will be able to accurately tell the time.

Exercise "in reverse"

Do the training, so to speak, in reverse order. Instruct your child to set the hands to indicate a certain period and then the hour.

For example, the assignment requires you to indicate the period of daytime sleep. The kid sets the hour of the day on the dial, and then moves the minute hand in a circle. He must understand that after her double

movement, the hour will shift to a number «3»

. In the same way, you can instruct your baby

show how long his morning preparations for kindergarten last (for example, from 7.00 to 8.00)

or going to bed
(from 20.00 to 21.00)
.

Guessing the right time

Using both dials, you need to arrange the arrows on them according to

differently. Then ask your child to guess which one matches the definitions of “good morning”

(9.00 or 15.00,
“good evening”
(18.00 or 1.00,
“bon appetit”
(in different versions

for breakfast, lunch and dinner).

Is the clock fast or slow ?

If the baby is confused in which direction the hands should move, an exercise is used to determine whether the clock . To do this, at a given time (for example, 3 hours)

set the hands forward a few hours
(4.00 or 5.00)
.
The child must understand that they are in a hurry. Then do the exercise for a situation where the clock is slow .
Many different exercises will become not just learning for the child, but an exciting game, and you can easily teach your child to understand the time by the clock . As a result, he will be able to easily master new knowledge and, if necessary, determine the time

without much difficulty.

Time before and after noon

An attentive student may ask a fair question: why is there only 12 digits on a dial with arrows, but on a computer or tablet the time is indicated up to 24 hours. You can answer this way: from 0 to 12 - night, morning and midday, from the word noon - half of the day. After twelve, the second part of the day passes; after 24 hours, the readings are updated and the countdown begins again.

You can clearly explain the change in the hour interval by making cuts on the layout according to the principle of cutting a cake, without reaching the middle. Place the second dial under the main dial so that under the divisions from 1 to 12 there are readings from 13 to 24. By lifting the segment with the number 1, the child will see 13, under two divisions - 14 and so on.

Show your child how the clock progresses on an electronic display, preferably with a seconds section. Explain how the timer works.

Materials with which we study time

Let me tell you how we managed to figure out this issue.
We teach time using some materials, some of them are purchased, others I made myself and will let you download. Something can be replaced, I will try to give my recommendations. One of the main parts of our knowledge of time was Galina Petrovna Shalaeva’s book “Clocks and Clocks”. I will describe our classes in detail so that it is clear what path we followed in our training. I think that resourceful mothers will be able to organize this process without this book. Although I will still note that we really liked it and will suggest that you can download it on Ozone.

First we found out what kinds of watches there are and why we need them. Literally every type of watch is presented on the page, the text is large and clear:

• wrist;
• desktop;
• street;
• station;
• clock in the stove;
• on buildings;
• electronic;
• alarm;
• with a cuckoo;
• floor;
• floral (these are flowers in Moscow on Kutuzovsky Prospekt);
• underwater;
• airport hours;
• wall;
• sand.

We took out all of my mother’s and father’s watches, the child was simply stunned by their number and shine, he looked like a little crow. We walked around the apartment and looked at what watches we had. It turned out that there were wall-mounted, electronic, alarm clocks, sand clocks.

If you don't have a book like this, you can print out pictures of the missing watch. Then explain to your child about each type in your own words. Or purchase a copy of the book online, it is available in many online stores.

What is day and night: download the book

While reading the book, we talked about what a day is, what do they consist of? From night and day. No wonder they say: “Day and night - a day away.” There are 24 hours in a day. During this time, planet Earth makes one full revolution around its axis. We've already gone through this when... Alexander read a poem on the topic, compiled into a book I made on Doman.

You can download it for free through this link

. Before downloading, review its content to see if it is suitable for your child’s age. If you are not familiar with the Doman method, let me clarify that the book was made for reading practice for preschoolers. There is text on one page and a picture on the other. For printing, use the 2 pages on 1 sheet function.

We read Shalaeva’s book gradually, on the first day we read about what kind of watches there are and looked at the available ones. On the second day about the dial and hands. And when we got to the definitions of “exactly one hour”, “half an hour”, our main assistants were our watch with rotating hands and the Kumon workbook “Learning to tell time. An hour and half an hour.”

Each lesson in the notebook was displayed on our watch. Thus, the child does not just draw arrows on the dial, but practices setting them independently.

A detailed description of the workbook can be read in the article.

Games to reinforce material

The smaller the baby, the more difficult it is for him to think in abstract categories. For best results, use gaming techniques:

• Take a soft toy, such as a teddy bear, and place the clock hand on the model. Tell her that Mishutka is in a hurry to see her mother and asks what time it is. Let the baby tell you the time.
• Next time, take a bear that will “say” the wrong time. Let your child correct him and name the correct meaning.
• Play the bus station game: by moving the arrows, “send” buses on trips at the specified time.
• Use regulations when doing exercises: jump, squat, swing your arms and legs for 1-2 minutes.

Steps

Reading information from an analog clock

Learn the division system of the dial.

The analog watch dial is divided into 12 sectors. The number “12” should be on the top of the dial. To the right of "12" you will see the number "1". If you continue to move further in a circle or clockwise, you will reach “12” and return to the number “1” again.

• The numbers representing each sector are the hours.
• The small sectors between adjacent hour markers are divided into five minute divisions. Sometimes they are marked by barely noticeable lines that divide the dial into minutes (or are not marked at all).

• Use the short clock hand to recognize the hour.

  The clock has two main hands: short and long. The position of the short hand determines the hour. Whatever number it points to is the hour it is now.

• For example, the arrow may point to the number “1”. This means that it is one o'clock now.

Reading information from a digital clock

1. Read the first number to determine the hour.

   Time on a digital clock is indicated by two numbers separated by a colon. The first number on the digital dial indicates the hour. For example, if it says “2”, it means that it is two o’clock.

   Read the second number to determine the minutes.

   The second number on the digital dial, which is located after the colon, indicates the minutes that have passed since the last hour. For example, if “11” is displayed there, then it is eleven minutes.

   Put the information together to tell the time.

   If the clock says o, then it is two eleven. Or, in other words, two hours and eleven minutes.

   Determine what time it is:
   before noon or after.
   Some digital clocks are marked with "AM" or "PM". In the absence of these symbols, you will simply need to know the time of day. Time is marked "AM" if it refers to the period between midnight and noon. If the time refers to the period from noon to midnight, then it is indicated by the symbol “PM”. Time can also be counted in a 24-hour format, where the counting after noon does not start over, but continues (thirteen, fourteen hours, and so on).

Adviсe

• To help your child feel the passage of time, talk out how many minutes or hours each action lasts. For example, we walk for an hour, the cartoon lasts 10 minutes, the guests will arrive at 5 pm.
• Play with your baby: ask what can be done in two minutes? For 5? For 10? Explain that every minute is valuable and will not be returned.
• Buy your preschooler a watch and periodically ask him what time it is.
• Read fairy tales and poems about time, watch cartoons.
• Offer to create an hourly daily routine together. Encourage your preschooler to stick to a schedule. This skill will definitely come in handy in the future.
• Learn numbers that are multiples of 5, 10, 15, 20. Have your child do the exercise: write them down in ascending order from 5 to 100.
• Take your time, over time your baby will be able to quickly and correctly answer the question: what time is it?

Advertisement

Attention! The use of any medications and dietary supplements, as well as the use of any therapeutic methods, is possible only with the permission of a doctor.

Learning to navigate in time

Once your child is familiar with the concepts of day, week, month and year, it is time to begin learning about time and the concepts of “hour”, “minute” and “second”.

First, give your student a feel for what time and time periods are. For most children, a clock is nothing more than just numbers. It is important to explain to the child what time periods are and what their length is using specific examples from life.

• The second is the shortest unit of time. One quick clap of your hands equals a second. Try this exercise: place a mechanical watch in front of you and clap with your child in synchronization with the second hand. By keeping in tune with time, it will be easy for a preschooler to master the meaning of the second hand.
• To study minutes, let your child know how much a five-minute or half an hour can contain. The cartoon lasts 3 minutes - quite quickly. Changing clothes took 10 minutes - voice this time. Pay attention to the minute-by-minute duration of what the child is doing. You can keep track of time together using a timer.
• Having learned what minutes are, begin to study the hour. It is important to start with the fact that a day is 24 hours, of which we spend 8-10 hours sleeping, and the rest of the time we are awake. This is exactly what a watch is for, to know how much time it takes to do a certain activity.

Studying the clock hand

You can teach your child to tell time using a clock by creating a model that has a fairly large dial and clear numbers. The best option would be a round watch. The presence of decor that will distract attention is undesirable. You can make the model yourself using thick cardboard. You can conduct training in this way:

1. First of all, tell your child why a watch is needed and what benefits it brings. This is important so that the baby understands how important this item is.
2. It is important to familiarize your child with the dial and explain what the arrows and numbers are for. It should be said that the arrows can only move forward.
3. It is worth focusing on the fact that there are 2 hands, one of which is responsible for the hours, and the other for the minutes.
4. It is better to start teaching with the integers available on the dial. To make it more convenient, you need to remove the minute hand and work only with the larger one. Be sure to tell her that she is counting the hours. During training, you need to move the hand and ask the child to determine what hour is shown.

Advice! To quickly teach your child to tell time, it is worth making a poster where there will be a certain type of activity near a certain hour: breakfast, a game or a walk. It is better if the images coincide with the baby’s daily routine.

Toys can help your child learn to tell time.

Account Rules

To learn how to use a clock, your baby must know numbers up to 60, and also count in fives and tens. How to carry out work in this direction?

• Learning to count to 60 with your child should be done constantly, but in a rhythm that is comfortable for the child: you should not require him to remember all the numbers at once, because everyone has their own abilities, which must be taken into account.

Advice

Gradually, the child will remember the numbers, and this technique will help: ask him to write down a series from 1 to 60, pronouncing each number. The key to success is regular repetition, so it is necessary to ensure that the child independently refreshes the numbers in his memory every day until he completely remembers them.

• The next part of the training is memorizing numbers that are multiples of five. This will help make the job of teaching time easier. First, you need to explain to your child that the numbers that we are now going to study end in either 5 or 0. Let him find these numbers in random order among the entire set of numbers from 1 to 60.
• When the child has learned to cope with this task easily and quickly, we need to complicate the task for him - find numbers that are multiples of 5 in order: 5-10-15 and so on. Each “find” must be spoken out loud.

Advice

An adult should listen carefully to see if the child finds everything correctly. If he names all the numbers, be sure to praise him; if he missed some, offer to try again, but be more attentive.

• Write down all the numbers that are divisible by 5 in a single row and hang the sheet in a visible place. By constantly repeating them, the child will quickly learn to count in fives.

Then, in a similar way, the baby learns to count in tens. There are only 6 tens in the series from 1 to 60, so the work will not take long, and most children will quickly remember the necessary numbers.

Introduction to the concept of time

Parents usually monitor the child's daily routine. Consequently, the baby has no sense of time. It is quite difficult for a small person to immediately understand all the complexity of this category. Therefore, it is important, before teaching a child to tell time using a clock, to first introduce him to some terms.

In order for a child to begin to understand how time passes, from the age of 2-3 years it is necessary to draw his attention to the fact that all events occur sequentially. For example, now I wash my hands, then I will eat, and now my mother will wash the dishes.

It is important to talk about the onset of a new part of the day and what should be done at this time: wash your face and have breakfast in the morning, play games during the day, and read a fairy tale in the evening. The ideal option would be to jointly create a daily routine for tomorrow. At the same time, be sure to remember what happened yesterday.

Attention! It is important to pay attention to the time intervals. This can be done by talking through the proposed activities: in 15 minutes we will go read a book, and at 9 o’clock we will go to bed.

Already at 4-5 years old, the child becomes familiar with the concept of a day. It is advisable that he knows what parts they consist of. This will help in the future to quickly teach your child to tell time. If difficulties arise, you can make a poster. It will have a daily routine with habitual actions that are typical for a certain time.

After mastering the concepts of time of day, you can move on to days of the week. To consolidate the result, it is necessary to ask the child quite often about the past day of the week and the one that will come tomorrow. To teach your child to determine what time it is on the clock, you can use the following techniques:

• poems, songs, counting rhymes;
• drawings about time. For example, first depict a small kitten, which gradually becomes an adult animal;
• looking at a family album containing early photographs;
• cartoons or educational video lessons.