Learning to tell the time is often tough for kids, but it’s a skill that they will need to master. Luckily, there
are lots of great ways that you can help them with it and have fun too! Here are some great ways to help
teach kids time telling skills that they’ll be sure to enjoy.
- 1. Make And Wear Paper Watches
In this activity, you’ll need a watch printable image, which is easily found online. You’ll also need a group of children, so they can play this game together. Print and cut out the paper watches, and have your kids decorate them. You’ll need to draw clock hands on each watch, and record what each watch says on a master sheet.
Once the watches are decorated, fasten the watches to the children’s wrists and then have them work together to record what time each kid’s watch says.
- 2. Create Clock Headbands
- In a similar vein, you can make clock headbands with your kids to help them learn time telling skills. Again, it works best with a group of children. Create headbands and attach a clock face to each one, with moveable hands.
The kids will all then go around asking others what time it is on their headband, so they can guess what the time is on their own clock.
- 3. Make A Paper Clock
It’s tricky to understand the intricacies of telling time when you’re just starting out. What does it mean that the number one can also mean five minutes on the clock? You can make a paper clock with your child to help make the connection. This requires you to have two circles of paper. On the top circle, draw a normal clock face, with hands that are labeled as ‘hour’ and ‘minute’.
On the lower circle, in each number section write the amount of minutes that represents. So, in the
number one space you’ll write ‘five minutes’, and so on. Cut the top circle into flaps so your child can lift up the number, and see how many minutes that corresponds to.
- 4. Play Musical Clocks
Here’s another fun activity for a group of kids. Use some printable clock faces and mark different times on them. Lay them out around the room, and have the children play musical clocks in much the same way they’d play musical chairs. When the music stops, ask them to record the time on the clock in front of them before the music starts again.
- 5. Try A Coloring Activity
What kid doesn’t love coloring? There are lots of time coloring activities out there that will help kids learn important aspects of time telling, while allowing them to be creative. For example, you can get a sheet that shows them how the spaces on an analog clock work, asking them to color in the spaces that belong to a certain number.
- 6. Add A Hook To The Hour Hand
This is a simple trick that will really help your kids learn to tell time. Create a simple hook with a pipe cleaner, and add it to the hour hand. As the hand moves around the clock, it shows that the hour still belongs to the number behind it. That helps kids read the clock much more easily, and makes it clearer to them.
- 7. Calculate The Time Needed For Their Favorite Activities
Are you looking to teach your child the concept of elapsed time? Then this is a great way to do it. You can get free printouts that have blank clock faces, and use them for this activity.
Have your child note the time they start an activity on a clock face, and the time they ended it. Think
watching their favorite TV show, playing a sport, eating dinner, and so on. When they can see the
difference on the clock faces, they can then work out how long these activities took for them.
While learning to tell the time can be quite tricky for kids, you can make it a lot easier by using these
activities to teach them. They make the process fun, and they put time telling in context for them so they can see how it works.
Rebecca Leigh is a writer for Academized and Literature review help, where she covers early years
education. She’s also a blogger for Essay help.
Rebecca Leigh is a writer for Academized and Literature review help, where she covers early years education. She’s also a blogger for Essay help.
