When you are young you have no sense of time. Many preschoolers live in their own world and distinguish the days based on activities and events. But how can you teach children to tell time and create a better sense of time? In this article you will find useful tips & tricks that can help your child gain a better sense of time.
Time awareness in children
Although children often only learn to look at the age of six from the age of six, you can already start with learning time awareness. The different types of time - biological time, historical time and daily time - can still be difficult for children in the beginning. For example, they may confuse the days of the week, such as "today" or "tomorrow"; No worries that is completely normal at this age!
A child's perception of time
To create a better awareness of time in children you can start with the half -days. This way you can start with the "morning", "afternoon" and "evening" to emphasize. What also helps to make a better distinction between days for children is to indicate how many "nights" something is sleeping, such as "2 more nights before grandpa and grandma arrive". By doing this you give children the opportunity to count down in days so that they learn to understand the time better. Another way to give children a sense of time is to use calendars. Be creative by children, for example, the days that have been, or to have activities that are still coming to color on the calendar.
Toys that help with awareness of time
There are also different types of toys that can help children learn the time and sense of time. Think of children's weakers or, for example, play watches. The children's watchmen teach children when they are allowed to get up or go to bed and help children sleep in the morning for longer. Play watches introduce children to the time and the hours on the clock in a playful way. Instead of numbers, these nice bells use animal faces or other figures. This makes learning fun!
Here are a few useful tips that can help your children learn time:
- Try to make a connection between activities and the time.
- Talk to your child about historical time, think of events that "yesterday" or "last week" took place or activities that are planned "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow".
- Make time "measurable", let your child color a calendar or, for example, play with a children's watch
- Use a sleeping alarm clock before bedtime, these fun alarm clocks teach children to go to bed in a playful way.
- Make a timeline of a fun event or event together with your child.
- Give your child the space to learn and talk about time.
- Let your child play for fifteen minutes or half an hour, do this on the basis of the clock: so when the large hand or small pointer is above/down.
