Noticing and telling time
The purpose of this activity is to provide suggestions to whānau about how you can support the understanding of time at home by noticing and telling the time.
About this resource
One of the ideas suggested is creating a maths kete at home. The kete will include materials that are helpful in learning about maths through making and finding things and playing games together. This page gives you a list of things that you can find around your house or can get cheaply from discount shops. For each item in your kete there are ideas and links to the Maths at Our House activity pages, as well as links to number knowledge activities. Many of the activities are games and have cards or boards that you can print off and add to your kete.
This page provides ideas for supporting children to understand time, by learning to notice and tell the time.
Noticing and telling time
Noticing time
1.
Draw your children’s attention to the clocks and timers around them.
- Look, it’s 7 o’clock.
- Look, the numbers are going backwards on the microwave.
- Can you see a clock in this place (such as a shop, library, train station)?
2.
Challenge your child to find all the things that tell the time and count the time in your house.
3.
Note all the names we have for time: the day, the month, morning, night, evening, afternoon, tea-time, summer, midnight, etc.
Telling time
1.
Support your children in learning to tell time. Having their own watch or phone is a sign of maturity and that they are ready to take responsibility for being at places on time.
2.
Ask what time it is often, and support them in reading the time. If it’s digital ask them to describe what that would look like on the clock face. This skill takes a lot of practice and you can add to the practice they get at school by encouraging them to look at clocks and read them for you.
- Is it past the hour or coming up to the hour?
- How many many minutes to what hour? Or how many many minutes past what hour?
3.
Encourage them to move back and forth between digital and traditional clocks.
- It’s quarter to 9. That’s the same as 8:45.
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