Reinforce the concept of time in four steps
Time management is essential for school success. Before young students can learn it, however, they must grasp more fundamental time concepts: How long is a second, minute, hour and day? What about a week, month and year? How do past, present and future relate?
Understanding time and how it’s measured helps children be more responsible. They can “be ready in 10 minutes” or estimate how long it will take to complete an assignment.
While a real mastery of time doesn’t come until later in the elementary years, this four-step process can improve your child’s sense of time.
Have your elementary schooler:
- Select a task, such as jumping up and down 50 times, drawing a picture or completing two math problems.
- Estimate how many minutes it will take to complete the task.
- Use a timer to track the time it takes to complete the task.
- Check how close the estimate was to the actual time it took.
- Select a task, such as jumping up and down 50 times, drawing a picture or completing two math problems.
- Estimate how many minutes it will take to complete the task.
- Use a timer to track the time it takes to complete the task.
- Check how close the estimate was to the actual time it took.
Reprinted with permission from the November 2023 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2023 The Parent Institute®, a division of PaperClip Media, Inc.Reinforce the concept of time in four steps