Dinosaurs lived a very long time ago so let’s use them to learn about time for kids. Developing a sense of time will take lots of time and experiences.
A sense of time is a challenge for kids although they will have some general ideas. Most of them have figured out the day-night cycle, and day is light while night is dark–unless they live really far up north. It can be quite confusing for kids when we ask them to wait just a minute or hang on a second and the time gap can be much longer than either. We often ask if kids had a good time. When we’re in a hurry, we may very well say we don’t have time. No wonder it’s so complicated.
Nevertheless, kids need to hear the various words for time such as second, minute, hour, day, week, month, and year, even if they don’t understand them. Kids may use some of the words and will likely have a few words for the days of the week and they will often ask how many sleeps until something special. If parents are home on weekends, Saturday and Sunday become favorites.
A fun game to play for time is What Time is it Mr. Wolf, but since it’s Dinovember, we can change it to What Time is it Mr. Dinosaur. Kids can play this inside, if there is a big, open space or outside. Dinosaurs are too big for houses and even schools.
One person is the dinosaur and stands in the middle while the rest of the kids line up at one end. The kids ask the dinosaur, “What time is it, Mr. Dinosaur? The dinosaur says various times and the kids take that number of steps. For instance, if the dinosaur says 4 o’clock, kids take 4 steps. If the dinosaur says 2 o’clock, the kids take 2 and so on. Until…the dinosaur says “It’s lunch time!” and the kids run back to the start before the dinosaur eats them up. Of course, the dinosaur roars and the kids squeal.
This is a favorite game of kids all around the world. The “It’s lunch time!” surprise can be changed to other times too, like Hugtime, or Tickletime. It could also be “Put away 3 toys time!” to make clean-up lots of fun.
There are special clocks for kids with pictures or faces that change for day and night. These help to learn about time for kids. With the time change on the weekend, how many clocks and other devices were there that needed to be changed at your house? Today, is there time to play?