What does “late” mean?
Every morning I race around screaming, “又遲到了! 又遲到了!” It takes my kids half and hour to finish breakfast and another half and hour to change their clothes. There is no sense of urgency on their part. One day in the car on the way to school after a particularly slow morning, I was explaining why we cannot be late. Then my son asked, “遲到是什麼？” To understand what “late” is, he must first understand time. So now my son is learning to tell time in the hopes that we can stop being late!
Because of our smart phones, I never noticed we don’t own a clock. Of course the kids can’t tell time! Wait, I take that back. They have the OK to Wake! Clock but it’s digital. The clock lights up when it’s ok to get out of bed but the kids never have to look to see what time it is. They have no concept of time. Gah!
Learning Clock
I got a basic wall clock at Target and had it on the mantel for a few days. He understood the big hand represented the hours, but he was confused about minutes. Most clocks don’t show the minutes. I had to find a way to explain minutes without first teaching math, because that’s a whole other subject we have yet to introduce. I decided a clock with 5 minute intervals is easier than 60 minutes. We can work on that later.
My son is obsessed with race cars. He says he even dreams about race cars! So, of course I had to make a race car themed clock. It was likely the only way to get him interested in learning to tell time. I wanted to make moving parts with the car representing the hours and the traffic cone for minutes. I decided to make a lazy susan out of cardboard and painted it black to look like a road.
Supplies
