Teaching Kids to Tell Time Digitally

So, how do you say this time?

Well, I had a debate that got sparked between my four-year-old and my six-year-old about how to say times like that one.

I hope you will stick around, because we’re going to take a look at, teaching kids to tell time digitally in our quest to build our math minds so that we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video below or read the transcript.

Why Telling Time Digitally Is Tricky

I really didn't notice that this would be tricky but it wasn't until my four years old said, how he thought about reading a digital clock, that I noticed that's different than how we actually say it. After hearing a debate that my six-year-old and my four-year-old were having in the car one day, I decided to ask them about the time and how they would say it.

So, when I was cooking dinner one night I saw the time and I asked them about the time, and I didn't ask them to recreate it but I asked them each how they thought about that time and how they would say it.

Here’s what they said:

[Christina] What is it?

[Riggins] Eight, zero, six.

[Christina] Eight, zero, six? Cam, come here. How do you say that time?

[Cam] Eight, oh, six.

[Christina] Eight, oh, six? Mmm. -

And yes, I was cooking at eight o'clock at night, this was after a long day of baseball, softball, getting kids showered, normally that's their bedtime, but on this night we were cooking dinner.

Now, the crazy part is, is that we didn't even realize that telling time digitally was an issue for our kids. In the car when the debate happened, my husband was like, “I never even thought of that. Why do we say ‘oh’ when we're talking about time?”

And for our young kids, it's no wonder it's really tricky because they are trying to make sense of all of these different ways that they are seeing numbers and letters. And, they're seeing them in all these different ways and trying to make sense of when it means this and when it means that, and then when we tell them to read time in a certain way, and now we're intermixing letters and numbers together.

We're saying eight-oh-six, not eight-zero-six, but that symbol is really a zero. It's no wonder that this becomes a little bit of a complicated issue for our young kids. I'm not saying that we shouldn't say ‘oh’, but it's just that we need to acknowledge that fact that that might be a tricky spot for our students.

One of the things that I really wanted to get at is not just that tricky part, but really what are the big things around digital time? Digital time seems so easy. All you’ve got to do is just read the numbers, right? They pretty much need to learn that in front of the little dots, the colon there, is the hours, behind the colon is the minutes. We just teach them to read those digits pretty much. But, telling time digitally is so much more than just being able to read those digits.

The Big Things To Help Kids Around Digital Time

Here are my big things that I really want to encourage you to be building as you're getting kids to read and say time digitally.

Noticing When The Flip Happens

Now, one of the weird parts as kids start working with time is that the switch happens at different amounts than they're used to. So, as young kids are starting to learn about numbers, they start recognizing that things switch at tens. When they're learning to count, you'll hear kids all the time say things like, 27, 28, 29, 20-10, but at 20-10 it flips over to the next group of 10 and we flip to 30.

Well this same thing happens in time but it's not at tens anymore, or even hundreds, now the flip happens at 60. We don't say when we're looking at time, right, if it's 8:59, the next number, the next time is not 8:60, it flips to the next hour and that's weird for kids. They have not had anything that's been a base 60. It flips at 60, but the super hard part is it's not just 60, that's for your minutes but then the hours flip at 12. After you get 12, the next hour is not 13, the next hour is 1. It doesn't even flip back to zero, it flips to one!

It's so weird, right? And of course, if you're doing military time, yes it does go to 13 and 14, that's a helpful part about military time, I gotta tell ya. But, if we're not using military time we have to acknowledge and help kids understand what's happening and acknowledge that that's going to be a tricky spot for our kids, getting that flip over at the minutes, and understanding that, and the flip at the hours is a really important piece to help your kids understand and kind of balance that understanding of it flipping at 60 and 12 and yet other numbers we flip at 10. So, I want you to be paying special attention to that and acknowledging that that's going to be a tricky spot for your students.

Using Estimation and Benchmarks

Another big important piece when you're working with digital time, is to help kids with estimation and the understanding those benchmark amounts. The hour is a benchmark amount, the half-hour is a benchmark amount. And so, getting kids to understand when it's close to one of those benchmarks.

So, for an example, my kids go to bed at eight o'clock at night and it's so funny, when it's like 7:50 and I'm like, “Okay guys, it's bedtime!” They'll look at the clock and say “No, it's not eight o'clock it's 7:50.” I think it's close enough, we're headed for bed, right!?! They think no, it's gotta be right at eight o'clock plus they're just wanting to stay up later, I get that.

But, all of those times where in our minds we think it's almost “this time,” are kids understanding that? Do they understand how those numbers relate to those benchmarks? When you look at a number, a time, we want them to understand that's almost this, or it's closer to this. One of the things that I do consistently is kind of always round a little bit. Like, when we're close to one of those hours, I will tell the kids “It's six o'clock” and they'll look at it and they will be, “Mom it's 5:55.” Well, that's almost six o'clock. And then, for my older kids I would even through in something like, “How much longer until it is six o'clock?” Just to have those informal conversations and let the younger kids be hearing about their thinking process as they move forward.

Understanding Length of Time

Another huge piece is helping kids understand the length of time. Even as adults, we don't help kids out with this. I'm guilty of this all the time. Having four kids, I'm always saying things like, “Just a sec!” “I'll get to that, just a sec!” or “Just a minute!” But, that second, ends up being like five minutes. So, when I'm saying “Just a sec,” I want kids to understand that length of time when I'm using that term. But we over use it. I know I am so guilty of overusing it and then taking five minutes to get to what I said that I would do.

Their judgment of length of time is not accurate. Even when we say, “I'll do it in a minute!” That minute turns into 10 minutes. Kids being able to judge the length of a time, is really really difficult. To help them with that, pull out the phones, get those digital stopwatches going, and have them do something for a second, have them do something for a minute. Project it up and show them the time ticking away and let them see what it feels like, what it looks like when a minute passes, when a second passes, so that they start to be able to understand those lengths of time.

The Difference Between AM and PM

The last thing I want to talk about around digital time is helping kids understand the difference between a.m. and p.m. The weird part is that our times repeat, and helping kids understand that there are 2 four o'clocks. It's hard for a lot of kids, because they never see the four o'clock in the morning, but they're awake and being able to see the times in the afternoon. We need them to understand that there is a p.m. (an afternoon time) and there's an a.m. (before noon) for all of our times and helping them know the difference between those two when they're telling digital time, that's another important piece.

I hope that this has given you some ideas for teaching kids to tell time digitally in our quest to build our math minds, so that we can build the math minds of our students.