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Parenting

teaching children how to tell the time

11 replies

cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 20:58

how do you do it?they have their watches with the minutes half hour etc but how do i actually teach them?i was late learner-i think about 11ish before i could tell the time.

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Octothechildherder · 03/04/2008 21:02

it takes hours

groan

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cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 21:03

lol

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shreksprincessfiona · 03/04/2008 21:07

teachingtime.co.uk has lots of games that kids love - only takes a minute

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cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 21:11

thanks!

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avenanap · 03/04/2008 21:14

The clock is like a car going around a round about. It can only go one way, there's a car (big hand) and a Lorry, little hand. Because the lorry's bigger, it goes slowly. The car goes all the way round and back to the top in 60 minutes, the lorry takes 12 hours. This teaches them the difference between the minute and hour hands, and the direction.

The imagine the round about is a cake. The cake gets chopped in half, to get from the top to the bottom is half the cake, so this is half an hour. If the cake is chopped into quarters, this is quarter of an hour.

The minute hands are more complicated. There are 60 minutes in an hour, pretend these are miles around the round about. When the car starts at the top (12), it takes it 5 minutes to get to the next number, which is why it is five past whatever number the hour hand (lorry) is at. There are 5 minute differences between all of the numbers, which is why people say 25 past, 10 past etc. It means that the big hand (car) has gone thin number of minutes past the number 12 (top of the round about). When the car (big hand) has got half way around the round about we stop saying past and start saying to because it's going towards the next hour.

I have probably missed things off so you may have to carry this on. Hope it helps (sorry if it confuses you). It worked with my ds. Best to take it in stages, learn the way the cars move first, then the half past and hour, then quarter past, then the rest. Good luck.

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cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 21:19

you are fantastic!thats brilliant!i'll try it!

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kategarden · 03/04/2008 21:32

wouldn't worry too much? they teach them at school - at least dd's school does (yr 1)

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cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 21:43

thats the thing dd is year 3 and ds is year 2 and not really done much yet.

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shreksprincessfiona · 03/04/2008 22:10

In school they normally start with morning/night, then move onto to o'clock both analogue and digital, before moving to half past. This is done over a couple of years so don't be worried.

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cheesesarnie · 03/04/2008 22:15

ok thanks.thats good to know.id hate to think every one is learning it at home but mine arent

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quickdrawmcgraw · 03/04/2008 22:16

I taught dd last week and it was great when she finally got it. It was hard though and then that I knew that I could never home ed
This is good

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