Time is a difficult concept to grasp. It can take years for children to associate the movement of clock hands with the passing of time. For very young children, time only exists in the moment. So, when they are dropped off at nursery in the morning, they have no idea how long it will be until they see their parents again.
At the age of three, a child begins to understand that time is a continuum and that things took place before now and will take place after now. After this age, time gradually changes from being a very loose concept to one that has associations with days of the week and times of the day.
Children in Reception may become familiar with the clock face and hands - and may be able to link the position of the hands to the routines of the day, though it's usually not until Key Stage 1 that children begin to develop a more secure understanding of how a clock represents the passing of time.
Practitioners can build on children's growing awareness of time by talking to them about routines and helping them to understand the language of time through shared past experiences. They can also provide opportunities for children to experience changes through their own growth or the changing of seasons.
THE LANGUAGE OF TIME
Talking to young children about familiar routines and reminding them of what happens before or after these routines, for example, washing your hands before lunch, helps them to build up an understanding of time.
Diana Lawton, who was one of the team that devised the Birth to Three Matters Framework, says, 'Using the common language of time in discussions helps children to become familiar with it and start to use it themselves. When talking to children, always use examples relating back to a shared experience because this is an effective way of encouraging children to think about the recent past. For example, "We need to be putting this away now because we will be getting ready for lunch soon. Do you remember yesterday we were nearly late for lunch because we didn't have time to tidy up?"'
Practitioners can also offer opportunities for young children to recreate everyday events in their lives. Ms Lawton advises using the home corner to help children work through their daily routines. She explains, 'Set up a bedroom and include all the resources that children will need to get ready for bed: a bed, a toothbrush, a teddy bear, slippers, a hot water bottle, pyjamas, slippers and a storybook. And do the same for getting up in the morning. Children could also act out these scenes in small-world play.'
THE CLOCK FACE
Learning the concept of time on a clock depends on the individual child and their experiences. Ms Lawton says, 'It's a very difficult concept to understand: the time and the clock time. You can't put an age on it and you certainly wouldn't be looking to teach it to a three-year-old or a four-year-old. You might be showing them a clock and building up a familiarity with the clock and the hands moving in a very relaxed way. For example, "Let's look at the clock and see where the hand is now." It's complex but you would do it in a simple way depending, again, on the child. A two-year-old could be ready for this, depending on what sort of experiences they have had.'
AROUND THE NURSERY
Here are some useful resources and ideas to support children's growing understanding of time passing:
- Young children enjoy measuring time. Use sand-timers to show how time passes and play games like 'Let's see if we can get dressed before all the sand gets to the bottom'. Try the Giant Sand Timer Offer Pack, £27.50 for three, or the Mega Sand Timer Offer, £89, both from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk. For outdoor use, there's the Egg Timer, £24.50, from www.earlyexcellence.co.uk. Or, try the Large Sensory Bubble Sets, £14.99 for three, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk, which show coloured liquids behaving differently at different speeds.
Include clocks, calendars, stopwatches, digital watches and sand-timers in role-play areas, so that children get the opportunity to play with adult ideas of time and understand that these are the tools that measure time. Try the 60 Second Jumbo Timer, £9.99 from www.earlyyears.co.uk, which makes a buzzing sound when the time is up, or the Jumbo Touch Screen Timer, £14.99, from www.reflectionsonlearning.co.uk, which has a clear display showing hours and minutes or hours and seconds with a simple stop/start function.
- Provide opportunities for children to record the days of the week, practising number recognition. Available is the Talking Day Chart, £49.95, from www.tts-group.co.uk, an interactive fabric audio chart, where children can select the date, day, and month from the storage pockets and then record a verbal version on the sound buttons.
- Help children to visualise the length of an activity by using a timer. Try the Timer with Alarm, £31.30, from www.wesco-eshop.co.uk, which has a red zone that diminishes and eventually disappears altogether when the time is up.
Use clocks with older children to help them associate time with familiar routines, for example, 7 o'clock: bedtime. The Wooden Clock, £18.30, from www.wesco-eshop.co.uk, allows children to pick out activities from daily life according to the time shown on the clock, and match with the corresponding activity card.
- Provide opportunities for children to play with clocks on a small and large scale. Try the set of five Teaching Clocks, £4.90 from www.wesco-eshop.co.uk, which has space to write down the time on the wipe-clean board. Or, the Softplay Tell The Time Clock with 4 Dice, £79.99, from www.earlyyears.co.uk, which comes with four 15cm softplay dice with printed hours 1-12 and minutes at intervals of five 00-55.
- Class packs of digital stopwatches are useful for older children engaged in science investigations or PE. Availabe is the set of 12 Rechargable Stopwatches, £59.99, from www.tts-group.co.uk, which have a docking station. The stopwatches can be tailored to the age of the child, which is good for children in the Foundation Stage.
GROWTH AND THE SEASONS
Experiences relating to growth will help children to explore the passing of time in a meaningful way. Practitioners can discuss their own experiences when they were young, and this will help children to develop ideas about growing up and the changes that occur.
Children can be invited to bring in their own photographs for a display, and put together 'All About Me' books, documenting, in photos, their lives. They will love to see how they looked as babies and how they have changed. Talking about themselves, their families and other significant people will involve references to past, present and future.
Ann Ross, a childminder in Dartford, Kent, uses photographic resources to help children gain an understanding of time, based on their own growth. She says, 'We have a digital photo frame with a picture of every child inside that contains a recorded message from their parent or grandparent. We also take photos of special trips that we've been on, and the children bring in photos of significant events in their lives, like a Christening or a new sibling.
'But for me, one of the most useful resources for visualising and reflecting on time is the Vtech Kidizoom Digital Camera used alongside a digital photo frame. Throughout the day, children have the opportunity to take photos of what we've been doing and I download them onto a memory stick and put them in the digital photo frame for their parents to see when they pick up their children.'
Try the Talking Photo Album, £25, from Cosy Direct on 01332 370152, or the Tomy 2074 Forget Me Not Photo Album, £16.95, from www.amazon.co.uk.
Practitioners can also talk about growth through the seasons and changes that happen outdoors. Here are some ideas:
- Offer children opportunities to observe seasonal changes. Go for walks to collect natural 'treasures' like conkers, acorns and sycamore wings. Place the items in a tray like the Medium Grey Tray, £3.50, from www.earlyexcellence.com, and fill it with a wide selection of materials, for example, Forest Flooring, £2.95 per bag; Half Log, £2; Bean Tin Log, £2.75, Austriarca cones, £1.95 for six; Bell Cups, £4.25 for six, and small-world animals like the Small World Fox, £2.95; the Small World Badger, £3.15 or the Small World Hedghog, £2.65,, all from www.earlyexcellence.co.uk.
Encourage children to connect with the seasons by using one of the four Talking Tubs based on Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, £45 each, from www.mindstretchers.co.uk. These baskets of resources have been designed to act as a stimulus to encourage children to think about the changing seasons. The Talking Tub Spring (£54.00) contains a soft cuckoo and blue tit toy, a nest, eggs and a soft-toy duck; gloves, a rake, flower, seeds, soil and a pot for gardening; a toy frog to explore the life cycle of frogs and other animals, and a toy sheep to explore the life of a lamb.
- Learn how trees change through the seasons with the wooden Arbio resource, £77.25, from www.mindstretchers.co.uk. It contains 24 boards with 12 trees in summer; 24 boards with 12 types of leaves; 24 boards with 12 different tree fruits and a mastercard printed on both sides.
BOOK CORNER
Books and stories can be useful to develop children's understanding of celebrations and events, time, sequence and chronology. They can also echo changes in their own lives and others' and introduce the distant past.
- Once There Were Giants by Martin Waddell and Penny Dale (Walker Books) - as a baby girl grows up and becomes an adult, the 'giants' in her family seem to grow smaller
- Happy Birthday, Sam by Pat Hutchins (HarperCollins)
- Sunshine and Moonlight by Jan Ormerod (Frances Lincoln) - these companion titles and classic, wordless picture books look at the daily routines of a young girl in the morning and at night
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Picture Puffin).
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