Acquiring the ability to tell the time on an analogue clock face is a fundamental skill that can promote a child’s cognitive development.
Despite the increase of digital timekeeping, playing ‘telling time games’, especially analogue clock games, can be a great way of supporting and reinforcing a child’s learning. They can help to provide a basis for more complex mathematical and scientific concepts. Teaching time shouldn’t be overlooked, and is still an important and relevant skill for a child to acquire.
Learning to tell the time introduces learners to several skills and concepts.
- Spatial reasoning (giving them the ability to understand relationships between space, direction, shape and size).
- An introduction to the passing of time as a concept, time-keeping, appointments, schedules and similar.
- Understanding rotation, clockwise and counterclockwise movement.
- Basic numeracy, counting and number recognition.
- An introduction to fractions.
- Critical thinking (by understanding the different components of a clock and their relationship to each other).
Instructions for playing the ‘telling the time’ game:
First, decide on a game mode. Then match the time shown to it’s analogue equivalent from the selection of clockfaces.
The game modes are:
- 12 hour clock
- 24 hour clock
- Words / Text
- Audio / Speech (requires sound)
Teaching Clock
To compliment the telling the time game, this useful interactive teaching clock tool can be used to help students read the time on an analog clock.