What is time?

Hi there! Today, I am gonna so you practical ways to teach how to measure the time. It is a fact that children do not understand the time because it is a difficult assimilation for them.We cannot forget that, unless we have assimilate this concept perfectly, time is an abstract concept. 

We cannot touch it, that is why is difficult for children to understand  the duration and the order of the events. Furthermore, they know that it is something important because adults are referring to it all the time. According to the experts, they can understand perfectly the concept at the age of seven, but we can teach them them since three or four. 

3 useful activities to work in the measure of the time:

1. Use sand clocks.

They can use sand clocks and try to last the minutes that the sand clock last. It can be useful in activities that the child do normally very quickly and it has to be done slowly or in activities that the child do very slowly and it has to be done faster. For example, to wash their teeth, to clean their toys, etc. In that way, the use the sand clock with they duration they need for each activity. There are sand clocks for seconds and 1 minute, 2, 3, 5, 10... It can be used with little children that do not know the numbers yet.

2. Use stopwatches.

In the inverse way, you can help them by using stopwatches. Ask them: how much time do you think that you are going to last writing six words? In that way, the child can approximate and guess the duration of daily activities. They set the time in the stopwatch and they can know if they are right or wrong in their approximation. Here he or she can correct him or her self by changing the time the next time.

3. Use the Time timer. 

It is a simple timer that mark the time in a red period of time that disappear little by little. It can be useful for long activities that last more that 10 minutes. It can be use with children that know the numbers, and to relate the numbers with the time in a more complex way.