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Original poster

Teaching child how to tell the time

22 replies

Smartish · 19/07/2023 20:25

My DD is 9 and about to go into Y5. She just broke in tears down telling me how she scored 1/15 on a school test about telling the time. I’ve tried to teach her but honestly, I can’t get it through to her at all. She missed the Y1 basics during lockdown and hasn’t ever managed to catch up.
I’ve tried: a time teaching card game with a clock
Drawing a clock and writing all over it
CGP worksheets

please help!! Any words of wisdom? She struggles with maths in general although her school report said she was meeting expectations.

OP posts:
IggityZiggity · 19/07/2023 20:32

I think time telling is quite complex and does take time to learn. Can she recognise o'clock times? That would be the first one to start with, then half pasts, then quarter past, quarter to and then five minutes. Can she recognise a quarter and half and counts easily?

Keep going with the games, it will be a case of drip drip drip. Ask her to observe the clock throughout the day, with where the hour and min hand are. Could try saying we can check the cake in the oven in 15 mins, count in 5s upto 15 to tell her where the min hand will be and get her to keep checking and tell you when it is time to check etc.

QueenOfWeeds · 19/07/2023 20:33

What’s her knowledge of fractions, and the 5 times table, like? Encourage her to apply those, eg fold a paper circle into halves - half past, and quarters - quarter past/to.

Sometimes it just takes time (ahem) for everything to click into place. But yes, as above, start with o’clock and work up.

goldfootball · 19/07/2023 20:36

Time is hard - agree that starting with making halves/half turns then making quarter/quarter turns is a great foundation for telling the time. Tbh I think loads of kids must not get it in yr1 because I have worked with plenty of year 7s whi can’t read an analogue clock.

Itisyourturntowashthebath · 19/07/2023 20:37

Get her a special 'grown up' watch and do just a little practise every day.

stargirl1701 · 19/07/2023 20:38

An analogue clock in every room in your house. An child's analogue watch that is worn every day. Orchard Toys time games.

Crumbcatcher · 19/07/2023 20:39

I got my DD a watch and asked/ told her what the time was a million times a day.

Latenightreader · 19/07/2023 20:40

Orchard Toys do a couple of tine telling games. They are aimed slightly younger but might help for practice. We have Whats ths Time Mr Wolf and a time telling bingo game.

EducatingArti · 19/07/2023 20:43

QueenOfWeeds · 19/07/2023 20:33

What’s her knowledge of fractions, and the 5 times table, like? Encourage her to apply those, eg fold a paper circle into halves - half past, and quarters - quarter past/to.

Sometimes it just takes time (ahem) for everything to click into place. But yes, as above, start with o’clock and work up.

After many years of maths tutoring, I agree that actually getting them to cut out circles, then fold in halves and quarters, then colour halves and quarters of circles, then fold into quarters and put the relevant clock numbers on the quarter lines, can really really help. Somehow it makes things click much more easily than just drawing half and quarter lines on circles.

Topez2 · 19/07/2023 20:48

I got my DD a clock similar to this and a time telling learning book (Amazon)

We started off with O'clock and the first half of the clock - Past the hour times.

She also has a clock in her room now which encourages her to check the time in the morning and to see when it's bedtime etc.

Teaching child how to tell the time
norbert23 · 19/07/2023 20:58

Numberblocks have a great episode on time. It might be easier for her to learn to say the time in a digital format against an analogue clock and then learn that we can say it another way, eg "6:15" then "15 minutes past six", then "quarter past six".

TwoTallTerrors · 19/07/2023 20:59

I spent a frustrating part of lockdown teaching my DC time in digital and analogue and got them both watches. They forgot how to do it after summer break had ended. I started again after awhile and the younger one (10) definitely has got it, the older one (12) can do it with prompting but has got lazy since having a phone and subsequently stopped wearing a watch. The younger one wears an analogue watch every day as I refused to get either of them a digital one. They are now surprised when their contemporaries can't tell the time, in fact one passed comment on it last week.

CurlewKate · 20/07/2023 12:10

Oh god-you're giving me flash backs to a ghastly road trip in the States when I unaccountably decided it was a good time to teach my dd to tell the time! I can't speak of it-it was too awful. Sorry- I know I'm not helping....

Does she have a watch?

Original poster
Smartish · 20/07/2023 13:13

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply.
We dug her watch out yesterday and she’s wearing it. I ordered a clock for the kitchen too as realised after a few of you mentioned it that we just use the digital clock on the oven.
going to try some of the other tips mentioned over the summer break. Wish me luck!!

OP posts:
RaraRachael · 20/07/2023 13:43

Lots of good telling the time games on Top Marks maths games. I used them with my pupils who were finding time difficult. The hardest thing I found were things like quarter to as 11.45 is quarter to 12 rather than quarter to 11.

lazymorningscrolling · 20/07/2023 22:03

Time is difficult and many, many children struggle with it. I find games like this useful before even beginning to teach specific times.

aroundthekampfire.com/2023/02/free-time-games-that-teach-the-hour-space.html

I'd treat it in test 1 or 2 so if she's missed the very basics, she might find it useful.

Original poster
Smartish · 10/08/2023 08:37

Just wanted to come back and say thank you to all of you for taking the time to help with this. It’s worked! We are moving in the right direction!
Things that worked well:

  • buying a big clock for the kitchen/dining/family area and regularly asking her the time
  • getting her watch repaired and encouraging her to use it
  • using some CGP books and starting at the basic level before working our way up
  • getting her to ‘use’ the knowledge eg. ‘At 9pm switch your lamp off and go to sleep’ and ‘can you tell me when 15 mins is up so I can take this food out of the oven’.

still a little way to go yet but hopefully this thread will help some others.

OP posts:
MusicMum80s · 11/08/2023 03:10

My dd learned to tell the time playing squeebles which is fun and interactive and builds up slowlu

TheOldLadyOfThreadneedleStreet · 11/08/2023 09:52

just to add my DD learnt this when she was 9, and while maths is not her thing, managed a decent gcse result last year.

PettsWoodParadise · 11/08/2023 20:37

My DD was (now 18 and about to head off to Uni) very bright but struggled with visual signals. We learned time and map directions by physically marking them on the ground and her being at the centre.

I marked the numbers on paper plates and she was in the middle and we moved my metre long sewing ruler round and long tongs round to tell the time. She just had to ‘be’ the time. She now loves teaching Brownies time North, South, East and West etc. but there was a time she could not do it. Something just clicked with her being in the middle of the clock.

redskytwonight · 12/08/2023 12:45

This is not answering your question, but my DD who is 17 still cannot reliably tell the time on an analogue clock. She can manage the hour and half past, but anything else becomes rather more guess work. She is otherwise good at maths and very competent, she just has a mental block about time telling, which years of trying have failed to resolve.

the good news is that in today's world, you actually very rarely need to use this skill. It sounds as though your DD is making progress, but if she stalls, it really isn't the end of the world if she doesn't get it!

highdaysandholudays · 12/08/2023 21:34

This Dave Allen sketch is very dated but really captures the frustrating difficulty of teaching children the time.

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