Through her eyes #5 - Dumpling's daily activities journal - a FUN FUN FUN way to learn time! :) + FREE PRINTABLE!

Dumpling is getting the hang of telling the time and has been very excited in being able to "read" the wall clock. One of the things that she usually does these days upon waking up is to look at the clock immediately and tell us the time. If she is not quite able to (as in to the exact minute of for e.g. 7:37am because my wall clock does not have the numerals for minutes labelled on it), she'd sneakily wait for the minute hand to travel to the positions she knows and then read it off proudly (and LOUDLY, I must add).

For some strange reason, one fine day while rummaging through the storeroom, she found my beloved Gruffalo paper plate (which I hoarded for 2 years!!!). While all I saw is 'partyware', she saw a 'clock'! And asked for us to use it and make it into a clock! Here it is!

We made this together with a braid fastener in the middle to hold the hands and we have been using this to revise and to work on our "time" sessions. Along the way, I dug out an old resource which I have and that is a dry erase book which the kiddos can fill in the time and draw in the hands.

It then occurred to me that it would be a lot more fun for the kiddo if the activities listed in it are about her day instead. The idea is to make it 'applicable' for her where she tries reading and recording the time before she begins some of her daily activities!  

I printed mine into a booklet and above is the book cover

Since she likes looking at the wall clock once she wakes up, I incorporated that as part of the 'time' which she needs to record in this journal too  

 The page is designed for homeschooling and non-homeschooling kiddos

And I have included some fun evening activities as a checklist too!

Now, have you gone all excited about this journal? I am pleased to share that you can download this activity journal here! 

Edit: I printed my copy as a booklet but the file is in A4. You can laminate it and then write on it with markers so that it can be reused over and over again. :) This is our last stage in the journey of learning and writing out the time where we have already learnt the basics.  

I received several questions about how one can start off teaching time. I started off teaching Dumpling using a resource which I blogged about here. As an overview, the steps which we went through are:
- introduction of long (minute) and short hands (hour)
- teaching of o'clock (long hand pointing to 12)
- teaching of half past, quarter past and quarter to (use pizza slices, foam etc if you need to, to show half and quarters)
- teaching of counting in 5s so that the child is about to read in blocks 
- drawing of hands (Gruffalo clock is wonderful for that. We progressed from gear clock to our DIY clock where she needs to manually move each hand)
- writing the time in digital clock format (using digits)

For multiplication by 5s, it will take a bit of time. Manipulatives are good. We also used hands & feet - 5 fingers and 5 toes. There's a certain element of rote learning in this but the idea is to let the child understand that each block equals to 5 mins and if the child is stuck, he/she knows how to count in groups of 5 to get for e.g 40 the minutes (half past = 30, and then add on 2 blocks of 5). There are loads of songs on YouTube which are useful in getting the child to remember them too. 

(Please note that as with all the other free downloads in this blog, it is for personal usage and is not for any form of sales. I would also appreciate it if you do not edit it and then sell it as the entire purpose of this is to share this resource so everyone can use and enjoy the pack.) 

This is part of our Fun with Math series! 

If you have enjoyed this post, please follow me on my Facebook Page where I share my parenting thoughts, food photos (be prepared for tons of them!), early shout outs for giveaways and interact with you, my readers! You can also follow me on Pinterest and Instagram!