Analog Time Telling

Hunter got his first watch a couple of years ago, when he was three and a half. It was an old, leather-strapped analog watch that was making its way to donations after months in a lost and found before we snatched it.

He loved that watch, and used to show it off to everyone with pride, who would usually ask him if he could actually read the thing. I will have to admit it was a humous sight seeing a little three-year-old totting around with a full-sized man's watch on his wrist.

After a few months the watch broke, and for some reason we never invested in getting a new one.

I think Hunter must be equally excited about his new $9 watch from Wal-mart as he was about his lost-and-found watch two years ago. He is infinitely prideful of it and it has become the covet of many little neighborhood boys. Who knew?

I still remember my first watch, perhaps when I was eight or nine, that my mom gave me when we were at a family church camp. It was analog (versus digital), which I'm sure had a double purpose of both helping me to return to the room on time as well as to teach me how to effortlessly read a "real" clock. My mom was cool like that.

So therein lies my "hidden purposes" in intentionally buying Hunter an analog watch, which he currently thinks is just about the coolest toy there is and loves reading what time it is. I want to improve on his time-telling skills, since, even though he learned it years ago, he has since become a little rusty, since we unfortunately have nothing but digital clocks in the house.

And secondly, to teach him time management, hopefully being able to tell him to come inside from the playground at such-and-such time, or to be ready to go at this time, and so forth.

Thirdly, to become more aware of what time of day it is, since often he seems quite oblivious, at least, internally (I could tell you that "It is probably around 2:00 or 3:00 ish" even if I haven't looked at a clock in hours, but Hunter, not so much).

Lesson learned? Don't wait two years to buy a new one when this one breaks!

"Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD."

Jeremiah 8:7

Hunter is 5 years, 6 months old

Teaching Time Management

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."

Frederick Douglass

Something that we bought Hunter for the new year is his very own calendar. He has been working with a calendar for almost two years now, first with a simple days of the week calendar, then with a monthly calendar, and also in many activities in telling time. I would say that, at this point, he has a pretty good concept of time, and can (pretty consistently) name the days of the week, the months of the year, units of time (i.e. 60 seconds = minute, 52 weeks = year, etc.), hours of the day (bedtime is at 8:00, etc.), can tell time on a digital and (for the most part) standard clock, and understands concepts like "last night", "afternoon", and "two days from now", etc. with a fair degree of accuracy. This is not something that I shoved down his throat but he simply developed an understanding by doing calendar time (most) mornings and talking about things throughout the day.

But now I think that he's ready (and probably has been for a while) to learn about time management. The monthly calendar we have been using was great for teaching months of the year and days of the month, but was quite limited. He now has a famous landmarks calendar (courtesy of the dollar store) that will be his very own and he can learn to plan his days and see what's coming up next week or next summer.

At first he wasn't too enthused (as the first thing I had him do was write a bunch of stuff on it) but it has now become his very own little treasure and he seriously cherishes it.

It has worked wonders. For one, he wakes up and says, "Mom, today is a school day!" He also counts down the days to the weekend, or when the weekend is over. "Brandon goes to work on the 19th, mom." He has gotten a little messed up on the ordinal numbers sometimes and has told me, "The 21 is a school day you know." "21st, you mean?" I answer.

This has also resulted in him being a lot more aware of when plans don't quite go as expected. He was quite disappointed when his aunt's visit got rescheduled, and kept saying, "But mom, she was supposed to come on Monday!"

I have been having him cross off the day each night before he goes to bed, and even without me reminding him, he rarely forgets. My goal in this, and other things that I am implementing, is not just to teach about time but about how to manage time, because I would say that time management is arguably one of the most important skills one can have. The implications of this are enormous. I want him to master this as young as possible instead of waiting until bad habits are already developed to try and fix it.

Just some of the lessons learned in utilizing your own calendar are, beyond the obvious math and time skills: planning ahead, memory, and mostly, goal setting.

The calendar is just a small part of teaching this, and I have a lot more things that I am beginning to work with him on, including having his own alarm clock, morning and evening routines, unsupervised school work times, and doing his chores without being told.

But more on that later.

"And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." 

Hebrew 1:12

Hunter is 4 years, 9 months old

Seasons and More

Earlier last week was the winter solstice, or "first day of winter" and longest day of the year. We talked about how the days have been getting shorter and shorter little by little, but now they will start getting just a little bit longer and a little bit longer until the longest day of the year in June.

This is actually something that has been really close to Hunter because, not only does he notice that his daytime playing hours are certainly less than before, it is especially noticeable to him because of the time Brandon goes to work every day (4:30 pm). When we first got here, there were several hours from between the time Brandon left and the time it got dark, but now the sun is setting as he leaves.

Anyhow, we made a chart of the location of the earth in relation to the sun at the different seasons. I made the earth and sun pieces out of construction paper, and Hunter glued them together and glued them on the paper. He also cut out the sun, helped color the sun beams, and wrote the season words. We talked more about the opposites of summer and winter in the northern and southern hemispheres and why summer is summer and winter is winter (tilt of earth creating longer/shorter days as well as making us closer to / further from sun).

We also learned some words - summer and winter solstices (shortest and longest days of year) and vernal (spring) and autumnal (fall) equinoxes (equinox means "equal", where the day hours are as long as the night hours).

Later we'll talk about how on the equator it is always hot (they are always close to the sun) and that they always have equal nights and days.

I like making crafts like this because it's not only something that is a fun project and a fun lesson, but something that we'll use again and again. We'll refer to this often to talk about a lot of other things (like the north and south poles and the magnetism of the earth, how the earth rotates as well as spins counterclockwise, the gravitational pull of the sun, etc., etc., etc. It's fun to learn these things as we relate them to real life experiences, making it simple and interesting to understand.

I was going to hang it up in the school room, but Hunter protested, "No, I'd like to hang it up in my room."

"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." 

Job 26:7

Hunter is 4 years, 9 months old 

Figuring Out the Clock

I've been teaching Hunter to tell time the Doman way, which says: if you teach a tiny child the facts he will discover the rules that govern them.

For telling time, this translates into showing him clock faces and saying, "This is eight o' clock", "This is eight forty-five", "This is eight ten".

I've met so many kids (and adults) who do not know how to read a clock. My brother said that no one in his fifth grade class know how to read a clock face. These are eleven-year-olds! And a lot of people who do know how to read a clock cannot read it well - like they'll translate "2:55" into "3:55" because the short hand is closer to the 3 than it is to the 2.

So I've been teaching him clock faces. So far he has learned the clock faces for the 8:00's, the 9:00's, the 10:00's, and the 11:00's, learning every five minutes (not stuff like 9:57, just like 9:45, 9:50, 9:55, 10:00). So four weeks of me showing him these little cards with clock faces. I have never taught him "clock addition" where you show the kid where the short hand is, and then the count out where the long hand is, and then put the two together to come up with the time. We just skipped that and went straight to "glance reading" like adults do - just look at the clock (even if it doesn't have any numerals on it) and know what time it is. And, of course, I'm just teaching him the facts and letting him figure out the rules.

And today he made it pretty apparent that he had indeed figured out the rules.

It was bed time, and I informed Hunter that it was nearly nine o' clock and past his bedtime, so he needed to clean up his toys so we could get to bed. To which he climbed up on his plastic book shelf and told me, "No Mommy, I'll just turn the clock back." and promptly did just that.

He has a soccer clock that I got him from Target in the dollar isle, and though we never pay much attention to it, apparently he has figured out that the hands moving means the time changing. So, if you just turn the clock hands back, it'll mean that it won't be bedtime anymore. I guess he figured out the rules from seeing those four sets of clock faces. Too bad those aren't the rules for actual time, just clocks. He was disappointed to discover that it still had to be bedtime.

"I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth."

Psalm 34:1

Hunter is 3 years, 6 months old 

A Calendar for Tiny Kids

I finally made a calendar for Hunter. He has had his days of the week "calendar" for about two months now, and has very quickly grasped the concept of "yesterday", "today", and "tomorrow" as well as understanding the meanings of "Monday", "Tuesday", etc., and phrases such as "in two days from now" or "last Sunday". He has also learned how to read all the days of the week words. And all just by playing a 20-second game every morning!

But now I am teaching him the concept of days within a month, and months within a year. You can make a calendar that tiny children can understand even if they don't know numerals (symbols that represent numbers, such as 1, 2, 3, or IV, V, VI). Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy learning about a thing that is so important in our lives: the meaning of months, "next week", "July 3rd", etc. Making a calendar is easy and inexpensive and takes just a few seconds a day to teach.

To make it I just divided an 11" x 11" piece of cardstock into seven rows and seven columns, leaving the top row for day names ("S", "M", etc.) and the rest of the rows for day blocks. The "August" header I got from a school supply store, but you can make your own simple label just as easily. I then laminated it to we can use a dry-erase marker on it and reuse it every month.

Right now we're just using dots, adding one dot per day. Eventually we will move onto numerals though.

"LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am."

Psalm 39:4

Hunter is 3 years, 4 months old

Our New Calendar

Recently I hung up our days of the week words to make a sort of calendar behind our door (one of the only free wall spaces in our room).

I labeled the top "days of the week" and hung the days from Sunday to Saturday at a level Hunter can reach. Just today I added a movable "yesterday", "today", and "tomorrow" aspect (before I only had "today") to help Hunter understand the concept of each of those words, and also to help him learn to read them.

I did this by sticking push pins next to each of the days and then laminating the movable words as they are going to be handled a lot. I used a three-hole punch to make holes for the push-pins.

He LOVES getting to move the words each morning after the pledges and prayer. We've used this calendar a lot to talk about what days we are going to do a certain thing. Just today, when he moved the "today" word to Tuesday he reminded me that he gets to go to Grandma's house today, which I had pointed out to him two days earlier. I'm really excited that he will finally be "in the loop" about such an important aspect of everyone's life, even tiny kids! You really can teach a little kid absolutely anything you present to them honestly, factually, and joyfully.

I'm working on making some sort of calendar chart that we can add a sticker or some other item to every day to help him understand the concepts of days within a month. He already knows his numbers so teaching him "the twenty-fifth day of June" should be easy. This will also open the door to the concept of seasons, which I'm sure he already understands roughly but he just hasn't yet been given the vocabulary to be able to describe it. And again we will soon be doing a unit on weather which we can record and track in a similar manner as this calendar project.

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

Psalm 90:12

Hunter is 3 years, 3 months old