Telling time made easy for kids

Telling time is a life essential skill and is a big stepping-stone in a child's life. Teaching kids how to tell time make them feel grown up. In fact, my children are so keen to learn to tell time that they prompted me to teach them earlier than I expected.

It did not occur to me that a young child does not understand the sense of time until an interesting incident happened......

My daughter was about 3.5 years old then. She went over to her grandma's house next door to watch cartoon and promise to be back at 9 o'clock to go to bed. I went over to get her at a quarter past nine when she was not back. She said, "Mom, you never teach me how to read the clock. So, I do not know when is 9 o’clock!"…though the clock was just hanging on top of the TV.

Teaching kids to tell time takes time and patience. The challenge comes in since there are 60 minutes in an hour and time is often referred to in fractional terms on analog clocks. Children must be able to read and order numbers to 60 as well as have an understanding of halves and fourths before they can read time. Children will only be well verse of fractions and order numbers to 60 at about 7-8 years ago. It does not mean that we should not teach telling time to children before they are at these age.

Learn how to tell time with young kids

For young children, there are several ways:

- Position of the sun in the sky
- Length of shadow
- Daily activities people do
- Tell time learning games

Learn to tell time with daily scheduled activities

For young children who are brought up with an established daily schedule of activities, it will be easier for them to relate the length of time with their activities.

When my kids were toddlers, I told them I will be back from office when they have their meals while the sun is going down - that is evening.

Whenever I need to run errands, I will tell them I will be back when they woke up from their afternoon nap. This gives them a sense of how long is the interval time when their mom will be away.

Learn to read clock

When the kids are able to count from one to 12, we can use a toy clock to introduce hour. I got one simple toy clock to teach my kids. It is very handy for me to show them time in hour. To the kids, it is another toy they can play with. Let them figure out how to turn the clock hands etc. They may not be able to remember hour and minute hand. Instead, they may call it "long hand" and "short hand". Let it be as the child will be keener to learn with him taking the lead.

At the same time, we can also complement teaching reading clock with clock games.

Telling time for older kids

For older kids who still may not be able to read clock or watch, we can mention the hour and minutes with their activities. "Wake up. It is half past seven in the morning." when I wake them up in the morning. "Finish your breakfast by quarter past eight. Your school is going to start at half past eight," I said to them at the breakfast table.

Though they may not be able to read the time on the clock yet but still get them an alarm clock or watch. They can refer to the clock or watch as we tell them the activity with the time.

Learn about time from Calendar

Telling time is not only hour, minutes and clock. We should also get children to learn about day and month using calendars. Give your kid a calendar, get him to circle the important dates, tell him the different festivals and holidays on the calendar. It is wonderful to know that my son has all family members birthday tracked in this way by himself.

Clock worksheets to guide kids learn how to tell time

Most kids enjoy printable activities too. This gives us an opportunity to teach them time while they enjoy themselves. We can use free printable telling time worksheets as material to guide them. It need not be an expensive affair.

Before you knew it, your child would have overcome this big milestone.

Hierarchy of Time Sense Skills

Teaching kids learn to tell time does not simply stop at the point when they can tell time. It is important that we need to expand their time sense. This will set the foundation for them to have good time management skills in years to come.

The Hierarchy of Time Sense Skills is a good guideline. It may even be useful for autistic kids too.

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