I'll be talking about time today. Dive in and find out how you can help your child learn time and read clocks and when to be (or not to be) concerned if you think it's taking too much time (pun intended) for your child to learn this skill.

I won't take too much of your time, though, I promise!

If you already know me a little bit, you are aware that primary maths is not my main focus. However, I have been supporting students learning at the primary level enough to happily dive into a variety of topics for the younger ones. Such as time and clocks.

In addition to my (good enough, yet a bit limited) primary maths teaching experience, to make this even more valuable article for you, I've asked some of my colleague educators about their experience and best practices when it comes to teaching children time and read clocks.

First of all — at what age do we learn to understand time and read the clock?

As always, this is a tricky question. There's no right or wrong answer. Yes, of course, there's the curriculum saying this or that, which can also vary in different countries; and even within one country, it can vary from school to school... So what should home educators, for example, make out of all that? (Especially those who don't follow any particular structure.)

The best approach is to keep it natural. Start whenever you feel it's good, and see how it goes. I learnt about time way before I went to school. But I learnt a lot of things way ahead of many others. So, the experience of an individual won't be the right decision-maker. I have also been teaching students who were struggling with this particular skill during most of their primary school years, and with a personalised approach focusing on the ways that worked for each individual child, they all got there sooner or later.

There are no specific deadlines for when your child needs to learn to understand time and read clocks.

So we get back to the idea that I often mention left and right: that you, the parent, can approach this the best way - by knowing your child, seeing what works (trial and error is completely normal and fine!) and applying the best working methods.

What are these best working methods, then?

The first (and main) one should not surprise you. It's learning by using this skill in real life. I was discussing this with Stevie Henry, a colleague educator, that if your child doesn't need to use time, such as when they're very young (a pre-schooler, or better to say before CSA, no matter if you actually plan for your child to attend a school or not) and they have little control over their life in terms of what happens when, time-wise, then it's a skill that's not going be used often or at all (at least for a while), hence even if a child learns it, they'll likely forget it for the time being (hah... so many time puns).

So, there's no reason to worry about teaching time to children who are way too young. But by all means, if they are happy to learn and curious, tell them all about it and practice whenever there's an opportunity to use time (even if it's you who decides what happens when - such as when the child wakes up, when they brush their teeth, have breakfast, etc.).

For those older ones who may use a bit more independence (or you want and need them to use time for starting/finishing tasks more independently), that's a great time (haha) to keep working on this skill naturally.

Top tips to start learning time:

Start easy — 24 hrs in a day and 60 mins in an hour is a confusing concept if you're child is, so far, only learning the standard (decimal - counting by tens) numeral system, hence understanding the context of hours, that there are 24 in a day and that the whole hour is marked by the hour clock pointing directly at it is great for a start.

Use real-life scenarios — choose key events of the day to happen on the hour (and later, you can add half, quarters, 5 minutes, etc.) so your child can participate in saying "dinner is at 6 pm" and recognise the time. Small wins are easier to achieve and lead to big wins faster!

Avoid overwhelm - focus on what seems easier for your child at first: digital or analogue format? 12-hr or 24-hr format? Stick to one type first, and add extras later.

Find more specific tips here:

Use toy clocks where your child can move the minute and hour hands to get a proper hands-on experience. Just play around with it, move the hands, create specific time, ask for specific time,... the options are endless.
You can easily make your own just from cardboard; no need for fancy toys and definitely no need for plastic toys (which are, sadly, still cheaper than wooden ones or others made from sustainable and eco-friendly materials).

Speaking of hands-on experience, time is a tricky one to "feel and touch", which is otherwise a very helpful way to learn many skills. We have discussed the idea of how to "feel and touch" time with Jo Clanfield (the owner of Teach Outdoors) in my podcast (mini video series) Home Educate Maths.
We talked about enjoying educating maths outdoors - my favourite way of learning maths!
The full episode is available in my Facebook group Home Educate Maths - feel free to join and watch the whole episode [>> here << is the exact link for the episode - you can watch it directly if you're a group member].
I'll just extract the part about time: basically, you can "feel and touch" time when you translate it into objects. Jo used the example of how much water you'll pour into a jug in one minute (or any time-length you choose). So you can see the water in the jug representing the time - basically your own low-key form of an hourglass that your child can create themselves*!

*You'll need to be pouring in a more or less steady stream, of course; it's not quite as scientific and exact as an hourglass, but it serves the purpose, and you can make it yourself easily, so that's the key takeaway from this "experiment".
So, as an hour is 60 minutes, you can imagine 60 jugs with water to make an hour. To link it with the clock as we know it, draw a big clock face (with chalk on the pavement, or use sticks and pebbles when out in nature,...) and place these jugs around. Or merge them into 5-minute intervals, so you won't need that many jugs =)

I've got a very interesting tip on learning time from Catherine Rooke (educator at Confidence 121): to teach time on a number line.
Let me quote Catherine: "I find that starting off using a number line with the numbers 0 - 12 works best (not the clock). We then practice minutes past (in 5s) and link it to our 5 times table. When they are happy with that, I do exactly the same with the clock face (only minutes past). Then we add the hour hand. Within 30 minutes, all my students can read the time (minutes past). The following week, we do minutes too, again separating the minute hand on a number line before using the clock face."

This is a very interesting concept, to change the shape of a clock face into a straight line - to help and visualise the beginning and the end of an hour (rather than running in a circle, which can be confusing when learning time at first).
A similar idea that I use is to write the minutes (as multiples of 5) next to the "hours", so 5 next to 1, 10 next to 2,... directly on the clock face. This lowers the pressure on the students who can read the times (minutes) before they can do this themselves without the written prompt.

For those who like maths games, I also got a tip from a few colleagues of mine for a resource website called MathsFrame (which I have also linked to the list of recommended resources on the main Home Educate Maths blog page). The MathsFrame link here will take you to the section about Time and Measure. If you scroll down, you will find a good selection of free maths games to practice time with.

To summarise...

Learning time, just like everything really, is mainly down to using the skill in real life. I encourage the parents to keep working on it on an everyday basis just as we normally ask for time, make plans, check timetables, etc. It's the repetition here that strengthens the understanding. But I'm talking about natural repetition for real-life scenarios (or play-pretend is cool, too), not necessarily just forcing children to practice with loads of worksheets. Although you can try a few such worksheets, they can be your optional backup if you don't have any toy clock I mentioned earlier. (I have very fond memories of my toy clock from when I was little.)

In the end, you'll find out what works best for your child, just as with everything. Maths is no different to learning other skills =)