I originally tried to teach my 3 year old how to tell time using a manual analog clock, but it was far beyond him, so I decided to stop and try again later. When he was 4, I came across this "Teach Me Time! Talking Alarm Clock & Night-Light" that I was able to get lightly used on eBay for about $30. It actually worked really well as it already came with 5 teaching stages that progress in difficulty, so once he consistently was able to tell time at one particular level, we moved onto the next one.
I chose to use this digital clock, but you could probably use a manual one to go through these stages if you wanted. Aside from using it to teach my toddlers time, I also use the "OK to wake" feature that turns the clock green at your specified time, letting your little ones know its OK to come out of their bedtime room in the morning. That definitely helped my husband and I get a few more, much needed, minutes of peace in the morning!
What to know before starting:
My son was learning how to count to 100 while he was learning how to tell time, so the first 3 levels he did without being able to count to 60 yet. We didn't move onto level 4 until he could count to 60 as well as count in 5's, and he began to understand why the times he previously learned were "fifteen", "thirty", and "forty-five". It might be easier and quicker to just start teaching your child time once they can already count to 60, but it's up to you.
I only realized after starting to teach Little Mr. how to tell time that it would make him aware of the length of long road trips (before the pandemic, he had been great in road trips, and we're hoping that will continue). Being unable to travel during the pandemic combined with an increased awareness of time potentially will make long car rides more difficult for him, so how this affects Little Mr.'s ability to travel will determine whether I try and teach Copycat how to tell time at a young age too.
5 stages of the Teach me Time game:
DEVELOPMENTAL MILESTONE REACHED:
Levels 1, 2, and 3 - N/A
Levels 4 and 5 - child needs to be able to count to 60, and count in 5's
DURATION: 2-5 minutes
MATERIALS USED:
Optional for Level 5: Manual analog clock
The Teach me Time game is very simple: your child presses the left button on the clock, and the clock displays a random time based on the level you chose. Your child attempts to figure out the time and says it out loud, then presses the right button to see if they were right.
REPETITIONS: The first few 5-minute sessions of each session will mostly consist of you explaining the level and the child trying for themselves once or twice. Once they start to understand the activity for each level, you can start to increase the repetitions per 5-minute session. For my son we kept going until he could correctly figure out 3 random times in a row, then progressed to 5 in a row correct when he got to level 4. He would sometimes be finished in just 2 minutes, while sometimes it took him around 5. Getting 3 and then 5 in a row is just what worked for us: you can choose however many random times your child should try to figure out correctly to keep this as a 5-minute activity based on their skill level.
Level 1: Round hours
Level 1 of the Teach me Time game displays only round hours (12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, etc). I explained to him that the long hand is the minute hand, and the short hand is the hour hand. When the long minute hand is pointing at 12, it's an "o'clock" time, and the short hour hand is pointing at which number (or hour) to say. So if the long minute hand is pointing at 12 and the short hour hand is pointing at 5, then it's 5 o'clock. 12 o'clock is the only confusing one here because the short hand is obscured by the minute hand, but it was easy enough for him to memorize just 12 o'clock and figure out the rest. Once they are confident with the "o'clock" times, you can move onto Level 2.
Level 2: Round hours and half hours
I broke this one into two steps when teaching him:
First step:
The short hour hand is now in-between two numbers. I showed him the direction that the clock hands move (clockwise) by pointing at the numbers in order around the clock, and had him copy me so he too knew the direction the hands move. Then say, "When the short hour hand is between 2 numbers, you say the one that comes first". So for example, if the hour hand is between 7 and 8, when you move your finger clockwise around the numbers, 7 comes first before 8, so the hour is 7.
Practice figuring out just the hour with the hand in-between 2 numbers before trying the next step:
Second step:
Then explain that if the long minute hand is pointing to 6, then you say "thirty" instead of "o'clock". So if the short hour hand is between 2 and 3, and the long minute hand is pointing at 6, it is 2:30 because: 2 comes before 3 so the hour is 2, and the long minute hand is pointing at 6 so it's "thirty" (minutes).
Once they are confident with the half hour times, you can move onto Level 3.
Level 3: Round hours, half hours, and quarter hours
Now explain to them that:
If the long minute hand is pointing to 3, say "fifteen".
If the long minute hand is pointing to 9, say "forty-five".
From my experience, the "fifteen" times are easier than the "forty-five" times because the hour hand is closer to the correct hour number for the "fifteen" times. In all the "forty-five" times, the hour hand is almost at the next hour, but they still need to say the number (the hour) that comes before it. So whenever my son would make this mistake, I would say "Remember, when the short hour hand is between 2 numbers, you say the one that comes first. Which one comes first?". He would then proceed to point clockwise at the numbers to figure out which number comes first.
Once they are confident with the fifteen and forty-five minute times, you can move onto Level 4.
Level 4: Round hours, half hours, quarter hours, and 10 minute intervals
I only attempted to move onto level 4 once my son could count in 5's (see the Counting to 1000 - Part 1, Activity 3). I explained that each number on the clock face represented 5 minutes, starting at the number "1", so if the minute hand was pointing at 4, he would point at the number 1 and say "five", then he would point to the number 2 and say "ten", and keep counting in 5's until he got to the number that the minute hand was pointing at to figure out how many minutes it was pointing at (in this example, 20 minutes).
Again, especially with minutes between 45-59, the hour hand is almost at the next hour, but they still need to say the number (the hour) that comes before it. So just remind your child, "Remember, when the short hour hand is between 2 numbers, even if it's almost at the second one, you say the one that comes first. Which one comes first?"
Level 5: All possible times
The only disadvantage with the Teach Me Time! Talking Alarm Clock & Night-Light is that you can only see the notches for the individual minutes between the hour numbers if you look at the screen from a side angle, and not the direct, straight on angle your child usually looks at the clock with: I've highlighted in orange where the first 5 minutes are on the clock, and if you continue around in the circle you can see a very light markings of the minutes, which are very difficult for a toddler to spot:
Because of this, I would put the random time the clock said on our manual analog clock, which had minute notches to help my son tell the exact time (our manual clock also had the minutes in 5's printed on, so I blacked those out to force my son to count in 5's himself). Then my son would figure out the exact time using the minute notches clearly visible on the manual clock. And just like that we had a 4-year-old who could tell time!
Experiencing time, not just telling it
When he was at Level 3, I put an analog clock in his nap time / quiet time room so that he could get a sense of how time worked: he was allowed to come out at 3:30pm (the end of nap / quiet time), so as he waited for it to become that time, he was able to see how the hands moved as time passed. In this way, he also experienced how it felt as time passed and started to understand what a minute was (instead of it just being a number to him).
Knowing and feeling the length of time will definitely make him value it more. Well done Little Mr.