How to teach your child to understand time by the clock. Educational watch for children

Nowadays, parents are trying to teach their children the skills of telling time early, starting at 5-6 years old. However, the learning process at this age is often not easy for young students, and the most that can be achieved is the child’s understanding and definition of the hour category. How to teach a child to tell time effectively, what needs to be done to make this skill easy for him to master?

When starting training, you need to take into account some tips, which we will talk about today in our article.

At the age of 5-6 years, not all children confidently operate with mathematical counting up to 60, and what is also important - the category of multiplicity, the understanding of which (numbers that are multiples of 5, five minutes) is necessary for the successful development of calculations with minute intervals.

But the child’s education, which began at 7-8 years old, according to the observations of parents and teachers, proceeds much simpler and fits into 5-7 lessons.

At this age, the student quickly and easily grasps the main points and after a couple of weeks begins to freely determine time. Therefore, it is better to wait a little and start classes when you notice that the child has a need to tell time.

Preparatory stage. General concepts

How to teach a child to understand time? In order for him to quickly and easily learn to tell time, it is necessary to form in him a clear idea of ​​the time of day, and, if possible, link this idea to the digital representation on the watch dial.

Discuss with your child the four times of day - “night”, “morning”, “day”, “evening”. Tell us how his daily routine relates to these concepts, what time of day he wakes up, eats, goes for a walk, etc.

Show me your watch. It is desirable that the dial be large, white, without distracting patterns or difficult-to-remember Roman numerals.

Tell us about the properties of two hands, the long one indicates the minutes, the short one indicates the hours. Explain that this property is constant for all clocks.

Clock layout. You can make it from a white disposable plate, the arrows from pieces of cardboard, securing them in the middle with a small screw. Sign the numbers with a marker, leaving a small space for notes next to the number if necessary. Take care of the markings (five divisions) between the numbers, this is important. The markings should be clear and large, the child will count them.

The main stages of a child's education

Learning to determine the exact number of hours

At this stage, it is necessary to achieve a clear understanding of the hour category from the student. To do this, set the training dial to some time, say three hours. At the same time, make sure that the minute hand is at twelve. Focus the child’s attention on the fact that the position of the minute hand at the number “12” means “exactly” so many hours. By moving the hour hand, practice determining the correct number of hours. If you were able to clearly explain the concept of “watch” to your child, then you can safely move on to the next stage.

We learn to determine the minute intervals of an hour - 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes

It is at this stage that the child’s understanding of the category of multiplicity will be relevant. Set the time on the dial - an even number of hours, say two hours. Then offer to count the number of small lines from the number “12” to the number “1”, draw his attention to the fact that there are 5 of them. After this, draw the number five on a small piece of paper and place it next to the number 1, but so that it did not merge with the unit! Explain what this means - five minutes past three. Repeat the procedure several times (counting five minutes, the result is the name of the time).

Try to make it easy for the student to understand that two intervals of 5 are 10 minutes, 3 of 5 are 15, and so on.

Make sure that the child does not guess the time, but thinks logically. Then he will form a clear picture of the definition of minute intervals.

Learning to explain half an hour

This can be explained quite simply by covering half of the dial (vertically) with a piece of paper or a cut out semicircle. Emphasize that the concept of half an hour is equal to “30 minutes”; practice defining half an hour differently – “half past nine” or “thirty minutes past three”. Reinforce these skills.

At this stage, it is also important that your student develops the concept of the first half of the hour - before 30 minutes (the beginning of the hour), and the second half - after 30 minutes (the end of the hour), since it is impossible to teach a child to tell time without these basics. This will help the child decide on the arrangement of minute intervals: it is now “five minutes past one” or “five minutes to one.”

There are alternative methods to explain time to a child. This is a representation of time intervals in digital equivalent, when people say, calling numbers, “now 15-20”, “18-40” and so on. However, few children aged 7-8 years can confidently calculate in fives up to 55 minutes, therefore, when choosing a way to teach your child to understand time, be guided by an understanding of his individual characteristics. If a child does math without problems and enjoys it and loves counting problems, then the second method may be more suitable for him.

Important points

Try to ensure that the student perceives not only the digital values ​​of time intervals, but also their alternative names in words.

Half: half past ten = nine thirty = thirty minutes past ten.

Quarter: quarter to five = fifteen to five.

Nine twenty (9-20) = twenty minutes past nine.

Remember that the ability to navigate time is a rather complex skill; do not require your child to quickly master the material.

Actively consolidate and repeat the acquired knowledge, and very soon you will be able to hear the answer to your question about “what time is it?”

Educational cartoon on how to teach a child to tell time:

The ability to navigate by a clock is a necessary skill that allows a student to realize the value of time and understand the need for its rational use. A systematic approach, game and practical methods will help you master this science quickly and easily.

Basic skills

Before you start learning time, you need to make sure that your child has developed mathematical skills such as:

If a student has not yet developed these skills, it will be difficult for him to learn to tell time using a clock.

Generating interest

When the student develops an interest in studying time, the learning process can begin.

• In order for the child to become interested, it is necessary to pronounce phrases using time measures more often in your speech:
• “You have to get up at 7 o’clock in time to have breakfast and get ready for school.”
• “After school, rest for half an hour, and then sit down for your homework.”

When a logical question arises, how does a minute differ from a second, what is their duration, children can be shown in practice:

1. By clapping for each step of the second hand (a second is almost an instant).
2. Determine the duration of a short cartoon (for example, 10 minutes), compare it with 10 seconds.

It is necessary to explain that day and night are a day, or 24 hours. Half is spent on sleep and rest, the rest is spent on doing necessary things (games, activities, eating).

It will be interesting to create an illustrated daily routine: Each moment is displayed in the form of a picture, next to which the time of its execution is indicated. After this, they get acquainted with the clock.

Getting to know the watch

It is advisable to divide this procedure into several stages:

1. Getting to know the variety of watches . At this stage, you need to consider all types of clocks that are available (wrist, wall, mechanical, electronic). It will be interesting to find out how an hourglass, water or sundial works, and to compare the principles of their operation.
2. Getting to Know Arrows : hour, minute and second. Here you need to explain which hand is responsible for what, observe their movement, and conclude that the second hand makes a full revolution in 60 steps - seconds.
3. Learning funny poems about clocks , looking at illustrations with different watches.

Time study

For learning, it is better to take a watch with large numbers and easily moving hands. It's better to make a clock layout yourself. To do this, you will need a thick cardboard circle or a disposable plate, arrows and a nail to attach them.

The layout is done gradually as you study the watch:

1. The child becomes familiar with the concept of “dial” , draws or glues numbers onto the base (you need to mark in advance the places where the numbers will be).
2. Get to know the clock hand , finds out how it moves, what unit of time it measures. Learns to determine what time it is by moving the hand first in counting order, then in a chaotic order.
3. Find out what the minute hand is for , how it differs from the hour hand, what is the relationship between the hour hand and the minute hand. On the layout, divisions are drawn indicating minutes.

1. First, they study the position of the hands when the clock shows exactly the hour (2, 3 hours): the minute hand should be at 12 (exactly an hour has passed), and the hour hand should be at the hour mark that has already passed since the beginning of the day.
2. Then the exact time is determined: “7 hours 35 minutes.”
3. Afterwards the concepts of “half” and “quarter” of an hour are introduced, such formulations as “a quarter to 8”.
4. Introduction to the concepts of “daytime” and “nighttime”. Development of the ability to correctly name the time after noon (21 hours 15 minutes).

Each stage must be accompanied by games and practice to consolidate the ability to tell time using a clock.

Games to strengthen the ability to navigate by a clock:

• "Stopwatch" . The child guesses how many times he can clap his hands in 5 seconds, or jump rope in a minute, or read words in a minute. Then he marks the time and checks whether he will manage to do it within the specified time frame.
• "Minute" . Children answer what they could do in a minute (how many steps to take, how many words to name), and then check practically.
• "What time is it now?" . Adults set a certain time on the clock, and the child calls it. Then the child rearranges the arrows, and the adult guesses.
• "My day" . The children’s task is to use the clock to show the time when he has breakfast, goes to school, does homework, etc.
• "Lotto" . On the cards there are dials depicting the time. Participants take turns taking out cards on which the time is written using numbers (21:30). Players cover the fields where such time is indicated on the dial.
• “Complete the arrows” . Children must draw arrows on the dial, focusing on the time shown by the digital clock.
• "They're in a hurry, they're late" . Children use pictures to determine which clocks are in a hurry and which ones are late.
• "How much time has passed" . Determine what time it is before the start of an action and at its end. Then they count how much time has passed.
• "Remember" . The child is first shown the clock for a while, then it is removed. He must set the arrows to the desired position from memory.

With gaming it is advisable to use practical methods. You can instruct your child to keep track of time: “We need to leave in 15 minutes to catch the bus,” “The cupcake will be baked in half an hour. Look at the clock and tell me when it needs to be taken out,” “We’ll have dinner at 7 pm, don’t be late!”

Practice will help children understand the importance of clock orientation and reinforce this skill. .

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.

The ability to tell time is one of the important everyday skills that your baby will have to learn. The sooner he masters this, let’s face it, difficult science, the better it will be for everyone. But how to teach a child to tell time? How can you clearly and clearly explain to your child what the seasons are and why the minute hand is needed?

Start over

For a child, time is something non-existent, amorphous, indefinite. Of course, the baby understands that life does not stand still, but he is not yet able to characterize this movement.

Introduce him to the most basic concept of time, namely the future, present and past.

Give simple examples.

• Future: soon we will go to visit our grandmother.
• Present: Now we are eating cake.
• Past: We built a birdhouse and hung it on a tree.

Explain to your child the difference between three actions performed at different times. Operate only with words that the baby understands and actions that are interesting to him.

When should you teach your child to tell time?

You need to introduce your child to the future, past, present, as well as the seasons and time of day as early as possible. At 2.5-3 years old, children can already easily navigate the concepts of “day - night”, “tomorrow - today”, “winter - summer”, as well as name the twelve months and four seasons.

A child can be introduced to watches at the age of 4-5, the main thing is that by the time he goes to school he can freely tell the time using a watch.

How to teach your baby to tell time?

When teaching a child to tell time, you should follow a certain sequence, namely, move from simple to more complex.

Conventionally, the whole process can be divided into three stages.

1. Teaching the concept of "seasons".
2. Teaching the concept of “time of day.”
3. Teaching the concept of hours and minutes.

Introducing the baby to the calendar

This is the first step in introducing your child to the concept of time. First, tell your child about the 4 seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn. For clarity, show beautiful photos of each season. There are also special materials on sale that help a child learn information faster: books, CDs, cartoons.

It would be a good idea to introduce your child to the Soviet cartoon “Twelve Months.”

Associations are very helpful. Describe each season and connect this description with the baby’s tactile and emotional sensations.

• Winter - snow, cold, New Year, Santa Claus, snowman, warm clothes.
• Spring - melting snow, streams, boats, first leaves.
• Summer – heat, sun, river, sea, ice cream, berries and fruits, dacha, village.
• Autumn – cold, wind, rain, gray sky, mushrooms, puddles, bright leaves.

As each season approaches, show your baby its distinctive features: the first grass, sticky snow, acorns and dry leaves.

The next step is purchasing a calendar. It will clearly teach your child to navigate the annual cycle. It is better to choose a simple calendar with large numbers and letters. The entire year should be represented on one sheet.

Here are some calendars you should not buy:

• with foreign inscriptions;
• tear-off;
• with abbreviations (days of the week, months);
• with a movable flag.

Hang the calendar in a visible place and tell your child every day what month, day of the week, and date it is. The past date can be crossed out or painted over with a felt-tip pen.

Make your own play set.

1. Print or cut out four colorful illustrations of the seasons from a magazine.
2. Take 4 envelopes and stick illustrations on them. Make signatures - “Winter”, “Spring”, “Summer”, “Autumn”).
3. Find 12 bright pictures for each of the 12 months. Make signature cards (January, February, etc.)

As you may have guessed, this game is simple, but very useful. Invite your child to put in each envelope those months that belong to the season indicated on the envelope. Praise your child for completing a task correctly.

Now introduce your child to the time of day. This is not difficult to do, since the kids themselves feel and see the change from day to night, night to morning, etc.

You can offer your baby useful games.

• Draw or cut out different objects from magazines: a comb, a pillow, a toothbrush, a lamp, etc. Ask your child what time of day he uses this or that object. Praise your child for every correct answer, and for 10-20 “hits”, award a small prize.
• Invite your child to write a short story about what he does in the morning/afternoon/evening. You can ask yourself questions: when do you brush your teeth? When do we go for a walk? When does dad come home?

These games will prepare your child to learn how to navigate by a clock, because the time of day is directly related to the clock face and hands.

Now that the baby knows the concepts of “year”, “month”, “week”, “day”, you can introduce him to the concepts of “hour”, “minute”, “second”.

1. First of all, buy a watch with a large dial, 12 numbers and thick, large hands. Everything should be clear and bright. In the bookstore you can choose a special kit for teaching your child how to tell time using a clock. These sets contain cardboard clocks.
2. Introduce your child to arrows. For ease of learning and perception, the second hand can be ignored for now.
3. Tell us which direction the hands on the clock go.
4. Explain to your child that 1 day = 24 hours. That is, the small hour hand must go around the entire dial twice.
5. Tell us that an hour is when the minute hand is at 12, and the hour hand is at any other number. The number that the hour hand points to is the “exact time”.

Now we can explain why the minute hand is needed.

Of course, learning will be easier if the child can count to 60 and knows multiplication by 5. In this case, you can first tell the child that 1 hour is equal to 60 minutes.

• Move the minute hand from 12 to 1. Say that 5 minutes have passed.
• Move the arrow further by 2. 10 minutes have passed. (2 multiplied by 5 equals 10)

When the child understands what we are talking about, invite him to practice. Move the hand, for example, to 8. Ask your child: “What time is it?”

If a child knows the 5 times table, he will multiply 8 by 5 and get the answer. If he is not yet familiar with the multiplication table, invite him to count: 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.

Do not introduce the concepts of “five to five”, “quarter to a quarter”, “half” until the child learns to quickly and easily determine the time on the clock.

Clock Games

To consolidate success, and at the same time check how much the child understood the information you presented, invite him to play simple games with a clock.

1. Remove the clock from the wall or take a cardboard analogue with moving hands. Set any time. For example, 9:20. Let the baby tell you what time it is. Move the arrows until the baby becomes more confident in telling the time, but do not overdo it and tire the child.
2. There is a reverse version of the above game. Ask your child to set the clock to the time you name.
3. Take two dials and set them to different times (for example, 2:30 and 20:20). Ask your child what he usually does at this time (sleeping, washing, having breakfast, etc.).

Didactic material

There are many pictures and tasks on the Internet that will help your child learn to tell time using a clock. Download and print (preferably in color) these tasks and offer them to your child.

There is also specialized literature. The following list is recommended reading.

1. “Conversations about space and time”, T. Shorygina.
2. “Smart watch. Learning to understand time,” N. Naydenova.
3. “Measures of time, length, mass, value”, G. Shalaeva.
4. “Learning to tell time (book with stickers)”, N. Morgan.
5. “Clocks and time”, G. Chernenko.

Conclusion

Children love to learn and are drawn to knowledge. Every kid wants to understand the mysterious “science” of telling time. Do not push the child away, but clearly explain to him everything that interests him. Use colorful materials - toys, cards, books, coloring books. Show your child a movie about time and clocks. The more information you provide your child, the better his research instinct will be satisfied.

The concept of time accompanies the child from birth. If you follow a daily routine, the “internal clock” tells your baby when it’s time to get up, have lunch, or take water treatments. Closer to 4 years of age, a growing child develops an interest in telling time using a dial. But teaching a child to understand time using a mechanical watch can be difficult. Teaching time will require effort and explanation. How to teach a preschooler about the minute and hour hands, how to teach how to tell time using a clock - you will learn all this in our article.

Learning to tell time using a clock is not an easy task, and parents will help the little researcher cope with it. On average, teaching children to understand time can begin at the age of 5-6 years. With the proper approach to first grade, a preschooler will already be able to answer the question what time it is.

How to understand that a child is ready to understand and navigate time? To be able to easily and correctly “read” the current time of day, you must have the following skills:

• score from 1 to 60;
• ability to visually distinguish numbers within 12;
• writing numbers from 1 to 12;
• understanding counting in steps of 5 (for studying minutes).

If all of the above actions are within the power of your child, then rest assured that you are just one step away from the concept of time. 2-3 lessons, and the child will be able to determine the values ​​of the dial.

Time: forming basic concepts for the baby

In order for a child to be able to easily name the required 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.).

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.

To make learning such an important skill as telling the time on a clock enjoyable, you can use the Nikitin methods for training. This technique involves learning about time in a relaxed way and will help you find answers to the questions “what is a clock?” and “how do they tell the time?”

You will need a watch dial with a diameter of at least 20 cm. You can make it yourself using cardboard. We make the hour hand wide but short, and the minute hand long and thin. On the dial we denote the hours with large numbers and the minutes with smaller numbers.

Important! When learning time, a child should know the numbers from 1 to 12.

• During the first lesson, let the child look at the dial and name the numbers familiar to him. First explain which ones represent the hour. Take your time, let your child watch, twirl the arrows, and compare their sizes. Tell your child that he is like a watchmaker, so he must handle time carefully.
• Explain which of the arrows moves slowly and which moves faster. Ask questions about the previous “topic”: what does the thick arrow show? Next, you can study that the hour hand on one means 1 hour, on two – 2, etc.

At the next lesson, repeat what you have learned and ask – what time is it? Since the numbers are in order, it will not be difficult for the child to answer the question. Having consolidated your knowledge of the clock, you can move on to the minutes.

Determining the time on the clock

The easiest way for a child who can count to 100 is to use an electronic clock to keep track of time. With their help, you can control time and do not need to calculate minutes. If you are looking for an answer to the question of how to teach time quickly, then this is probably the easiest option. But an electronic device can take away the incentive to learn to use a regular mechanical watch. At the learning stage, try not to give your child “indulgence” in the form of a dial on the display.

• Buy a children's watch made of wood or cardboard with the ability to move the hands yourself. The numbers should be written by hour and minute, this will make it easier to associate the location of the hand and the amount of time.

We rarely use the second hand to tell the time, so pay attention, first of all, to the hour and minute hands.

Show in which direction the hands on the clock move. The meaning “clockwise” will often accompany the child. Explain that the arrows only move in one direction.

The numbers from 1 to 12 are usually written on the clock, but it is important to immediately tell that the day includes a whole 24 hours. A day is when the small hour hand circles the entire dial twice.

What is an hour? This is when the hour hand is at any of the numbers, and the minute hand is exactly at 12. First we look at the hour hand, then at the minute hand, and in no case vice versa.

Move from theory to practice. Show that moving the minute hand by one means 5 minutes. They moved it again - already 10 minutes (5+5).

Note! If the child is familiar with the multiplication table, then it is easier to explain that two times five is ten. The row of multiplication by five is the “minute” dial. Not familiar with multiplication? You can simply remember it as a tongue twister - 5,10,15,20, etc.