They don't "really" need to know how to tell time....

[smudge]

right?

 

ARGH! I am about ready to throw in the towel, get her a digital clock and forget the whole thing. Teaching time is most painful....

 

:lol:

[Arcadia]

My younger boy only manage to tell time after he turn 8. He still have to recite days of the week :lol:

 

Time is just one of those concepts that you have to let it go and come back later to it.

[Mandylubug]

My dyslexic gals can tell if its on the :30, :00, :15 and :45....any others and they start guessing some weird times like 11:65

[Ellie]

We had analog clocks all over the house, and we gave watches to the dc for their birthdays. Most of our instruction was talking about time and referring to the clocks. Dc figured it out. :-)

 

Ditto for calendars.

 

I don't think I ever did any direct teaching using worksheets or official math lessons or anything.

[HelenNotOfTroy]

I am thinking about making it something we do once a day at a different time - look at an analog clock and figure out the time.

[Paige]

I have 2 that I feel like giving up on clocks with as well. We think they have it mastered and then it seems like they forget. It's one step forward and two steps back, but I do see progress with maturity. My other kids seemed to learn it like they learned to breathe. Everyone is different and they are teaching me humility- it's a painful lesson sometimes!

[simplemom]

Can't think of the name of it, but I used a book that had a movable hands clock/wristwatch on it. It explained very well how the minutes correspond with the numbers and lines, and how the hour hand slowly moves every few minutes during the hour. Google "books that teach telling time" and many suggestions will come up. Maybe the library will have some books like that. I didn't bother teaching ds quarter, half, and 3/4 hour...I waited till he was 7ish and taught it all at once. Occasionally, I'll ask him to tell the real time. We skipped the time worksheets and went straight for the real thing (an actual clock).

 

2nd opinion is to agree with those above....stop trying to teach it for a few months and come back to it maybe after Christmas.

 

ETA:my dd 6 doesn't know yet even though I have explained the basics, but plan to wait a few months when hopefully she will have a better grasp on the concept.

[Alte Veste Academy]

This is one that I skipped until they were ready, without a second thought. When they were ready, they got it instantly, like a switch was flipped. Not worth a struggle, in my opinion. :)

[73349]

They do have to know, but not today. Come back around to it later.

[raptor_dad]

This is one that I skipped until they were ready, without a second thought. When they were ready, they got it instantly, like a switch was flipped. Not worth a struggle, in my opinion. :)

 

Right... But the other side of this is that working on telling time to the hour, then half, then quarter hour, then to a digital equivalent... over the course of 3 or 4 years like in PS curriculums might work just as well...

 

Using telling time to help teach fractions and algorithms or teaching those concepts before telling time are both valid options... which one will work best for your kid is a judgement call.

 

PS. Telling time is also a great entree to modular arithmetic and other subjects that can usually be introduced earlier in this concrete fashion... you could also us weeks or months but the issues seem similar.  

 

[8filltheheart]

This is one that I skipped until they were ready, without a second thought. When they were ready, they got it instantly, like a switch was flipped. Not worth a struggle, in my opinion. :)

 

I agree.  Definitely should be a non-issue.   It isn't critical to moving forward with other concepts.   Return to it on another day.

[coffeegal]

We had analog clocks all over the house, and we gave watches to the dc for their birthdays. Most of our instruction was talking about time and referring to the clocks. Dc figured it out. :-)

 

Ditto for calendars.

 

I don't think I ever did any direct teaching using worksheets or official math lessons or anything.

 

:iagree: I think it was a lot easier back when there were very few digital clocks around to teach time. lol, I still have to see or visualize an analog clock to manipulate time - what time to start the oven if dinner is to be at 6 - type of thing. My 11 yo CAN read an analog clock but not easily. It's simply not a skill that's as used now as it was.  Either spend a couple minutes a day working with analog clocks, give them an analog watch, or wait a year or two. It'll come. :001_smile:

[Crimson Wife]

My oldest struggled with time and money for a similar reason: she had difficulty conceptually understanding the idea that one number could symbolically represent another. So if she had 5 coins, she would say that she had "5 cents" regardless of what those coins were. Similarly, 8:30 would be read as "8:06". I "parked" on those concepts and she did eventually get them, but in retrospect, I wish that I had skipped those lessons and just waited until she was older. That is what I did with DS, and it saved us a lot of frustration.

[PachiSusan]

My 11 year old still struggles with it. It's maddening. LOL 

[idnib]

I gave up, came back a year later, and it took 15 minutes for him to grasp it. Sometimes earlier is not better.  ;)

[mommymonster]

We did one a day for all of second grade. It clicked somewhere around March. I mostly modeled the thinking that went behind telling time ("first I look at the small hand so that I can tell the hour. What is it pointing to? Oh, yes, it's on the 2. Now for minutes. What hand do we look at? Oh, yes, the larger hand. Nope, not the red one moving fast. That's the second hand. Now, back to the minute hand..."). He got it eventually. Now, about dates... not yet. 

[Guest]

I do it in the context of Saxon Math. I think it's useful in learning 5 times tables, even though it isn't as much of a "real life use" for my 6 year old as it was for his 22 year old brother so my expectations are a bit lower.

 

IIRC, my 25 year old was about this age when she got her first watch and it was a HUGE growing up milestone, but not as exciting as when my big sister got a real watch for her birthday from our grandmother and I looked on in awe at how grown up she was.

 

It almost feels sad to shatter the digital native's innocence in this hurry hurry rush rush society. I didn't feel this way at all with my millennials.

[Miss Tick]

Maybe it will go the way of cursive handwriting and by the time you are ready to teach it it will be (is?) strictly a novelty.

[raptor_dad]

My oldest struggled with time and money for a similar reason:

 

Exactly! Telling time, working in roman numerals( which MEP loves), working in pre-decimal british coinage, etc all teach kids to deal with different bases, which is a huge conceptual win. It is less explicit but much more concrete than those hated examples of converting things in to base 7 that always cropped up in new math curriculums.

 

Many modern programs try to teach these skills earlier using examples like time or money. If your kid groks it early that is a huge win; if not you can easily move on and revisit it later. I would use whatever program you've chosen and move on and revisit it as needed.

 

[Garga]

My son finally just got it about a week ago. He's nine and a half and in 4th grade. We've been working on this since 1st. No matter what I would say or show him or what activities he did, he just Did Not Get It until last week.

 

I remember when I was 17 that my friend parked her car at a metered parking spot. She said, "I don't have to pay after 6:30. Is it 6:30?" I checked my watch, knowing how bad I was a telling time. I said, "Oh, it's ok! It's past 6:30!"

 

Well, as usual, I read it wrong and it was only 5:30. She got a parking ticket.

 

I didn't learn to tell time until I was in my 20's. See, I never learned back in first grade and then was too embarrassed to admit it and ask for help and there was no internet or Khan academy, so I just never knew how to read the clocks. I think my husband finally had to teach me.

 

And yes, I'm a homeschooling parent now. Please don't judge my intellect by my delayed time telling!

[Tanaqui]

I had trouble telling time on an analog clock until high school. If I asked the time, and somebody showed me on their watch and it wasn't digital, I just nodded sagely, thanked them, and went to find somebody else.

 

After reflecting on my problem, and on that of the darling girls, I think the problem is that darn minute hand. They look at 4:59, observe that the hour hand is *just short* of the 5, and determine that it must be... 5:59.

 

If they could learn to tell time with just the hour hand, noting if it was about halfway between two hours or whatnot, and then add the minute hand in much later, they'd have much greater accuracy in the long run. I don't think textbooks agree with me.

[Kathie in VA]

I like to do his in a very different manner then what I've seen anywhere else. I'm so strange. I teach seconds first. We get an idea of 5 seconds and then more. Eventually we get to 60 seconds. More then that and suddenly there is a reason to keep track of each time the second hand goes around the circle and past the top. That's when I introduce the minute hand. We get a feel for counting seconds, a whole minute, a minute and seconds, and multiple minutes. Eventually we can see the problem that arises at 60 minutes! So now there's a need for the hour hand. So we play with hrs, min., and seconds. After 12 hrs there is a need to explain AM and PM and then a new day (maybe shift to a calendar?).

 

This explains time basics. Then we use any knowledge of fractions to go over half past or to the hour and quarter past or till the hour. After these skills we can get into estimating the time. At some point our math will usually cover arithmetic with time.

[RootAnn]

 Except for the microwave, the oven, and the alarm clock(s) in the house, all the other clocks are analog. There is one in almost every room -- and DH finds it fun to make sure they are all within a minute of each other .... several times a year. So, there is no problem with lack of exposure. We also cover it in our math program -- repeatedly.

 

I still find my kids deny knowing how to tell time when they want to know if it is time yet for something. We've taken to telling dd#2 & dd#3, "[Activity] is at [time]. You figure it out." So, they ask, "How much time until karate?" and we say, "Karate is at 7. You figure it out." It is maddening for us all. Because they DO know how to tell time & elapsed time, they just don't want to use their brains!

 

[Note, part of the frustration in the 'voice' of this post is because today is Monday. Mondays are hard because the kids just want to play all day & not do school. Please forgive the GRRR!]

[Jess4879]

This is one that I skipped until they were ready, without a second thought. When they were ready, they got it instantly, like a switch was flipped. Not worth a struggle, in my opinion. :)

 

We did the same. 

 

[ByGrace3]

right?

 

ARGH! I am about ready to throw in the towel, get her a digital clock and forget the whole thing. Teaching time is most painful....

 

:lol:

The first week of school clocks caused such angst that I banned them for a minimum of 6 months. For real. He was stressed. I was stressed. He cried. I cried. I yelled. No more clocks. . . Until the new year!

Drastic and hyperbolic perhaps, but my sanity and my relationship with my child are worth it! Maybe in a few months he will be more developmentally ready for it...

 

So nope. Don't need it. Not today anyway. :lol:

[fourisenough]

I think telling time is a perfect illustration of the concept of learning something quickly & easily once you have a NEED for the information: my girls are all competitive swimmers. Despite my teaching it diligently every year, none of them mastered the art of telling time until they had to read a pace clock at the pool.

[SierraNevada]

Yeah, unfortunately all rooms in my house have digital clocks. Part of that is just that the way computers are taking over. So although my DS has learned it, he hasn't used it since and I have not gone back much to check for retention. I think he'd probably get the short and long hands mixed up. We just don't see many analog clocks around anymore. I've thought about buying one just so he could see it daily, but why bother when the stove clock is right there (by where we do our school work). I'm sure it's a skill you will pick up when it is needed. I'm not too worried about it. But if you are into screen learning there was a really good app we used long ago-- I think it was just called Telling Time lite--free, good and kind of fun. Apps make everything easy learning after all, right?

[Farrar]

The other day, ds, who is about to turn 10, forgot how. It took him all of about 60 seconds to completely relearn. When he was younger and we worked on it, it took eons. Basically, don't sweat it. Come back to it in a year. So not essential.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Any chance she's a kinetic learner? Trying some alternative, kinetic ways to learn time helped my kinetic learner. These are the ideas I used.

[Momto4inSoCal]

My kids can both fill in a worksheet filled with clocks perfectly and then ask me what time it is because they can't read the clock on the wall.... The questions like "Billy started swimming at 8:43 and swam for 39 min what time did he finish" throw them through a loop also. I'm having a hard time finding a supplement that goes over those kind of questions. Most books are filled with clocks on 8:45, 7:30 etc. Great for 1st and 2nd grade, not so great for older kids.