Telling time is a skill. Understanding time is experience. A sense of time, just like other kindergarten readiness skills, is something that needs lots of meaningful experiences. Time can be confusing. 2 minutes of waiting time feels much longer than 20 minutes of fun. Time has lots of different parts, too.
December begins tomorrow. Of course, counting the days until Christmas is an obvious choice for a learning-about-time activity. Plus, your family may have something special happening earlier on another day this month. Is Grandma arriving soon? Is there an afternoon planned to have some cousins come over for a visit? Perhaps, your childcare center is going on a special field trip. Or, there may be a particular day for setting up a tree. How many days until school holidays? (I’m counting down to that one.)
Time contains big units, like weeks and months, and smaller units such as days, hours and minutes. To help develop this concept of time within time, choose a big, clear, unbreakable container with a lid, in case it tips over. Count out 25 small objects of one color such as 25 blue legos, or 25 fuzzy red balls, etc. These will be the 25 sleeps until Christmas. Now, count out a different color of the same objects for the number of sleeps to the other special event this month. Your container will have 25 of one color and some of another color. At bedtime, or end of the day time, take out one of each color–for the ‘sleep’. With this activity, kids have a meaningful visual and touch experience for understanding time.
Q. What kind of dog can tell time? A. A watch dog. Has this been timely for you?