What Time Is It?

"What time is it, Mumma?"


"Its ten past six, honey,"  We're sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner and two little faces are looking at the clock on the wall behind me.

"What does dat mean?"

"Well, it means that, uh, its six-ten in the evening."

"Dat's right, Mumma.  And its two o'cwock now.  Cause da hand is on da two.  I seed it."

I look over my shoulder at the clock.  Dang.  The little hand might very well be on the six, but the little hand is on the two.  This is complicated.

"Well, um, yes, there is a two there - and good for you, Owen for knowing what two looks like! - but, see, all the little dots between the numbers?  Those are called minutes and in every hour there are sixty of them.  Sixty minutes make up one hour.  And in every day there are twenty-four..." I falter and look back up at the clock again.  See the numbers one through twelve.  Not one to twenty-four.  I glance at two sweet little faces now scrunched up in confusion. How on earth am I supposed to explain this?  "Say!  Who'd like dessert?!"

***

Okay, so maybe diverting their attention away from the subject at hand wasn't very educational of me, but if I continued down the route I was going we were all going to be confused in no time (if you'll pardon the pun).

Owen and William have been trying to grasp the concept of time, but its tricky, as you can see.  They don't quite understand the duration of time yet ("We'll go swimming in fifteen minutes." "How long is dat?"  "Um, its one entire Arthur episode".  "Aw! Dat's a yong time!").  We also struggle with the notion of today, tomorrow and yesterday, which I think they assume are like days of the week, like Monday, Tuesday, etc ("When are we going to da party?" "Tomorrow".  "Is it Tomorrow today?"  "No, tomorrow is one sleep away, sweetheart.") And, you know, the whole number recognition this is still a work in progress.

Part of me just wants to leave all this explaining to someone more qualified, someone who won't totally overwhelm them with useless information or mind boggling notions of past, present and future.  And Mr Google seems to offer lots of sites that recommend waiting to teach time once kids can master counting by fives.  Maybe I should just ignore the questions until they're old enough to understand?  Or take down the clock?  Maybe I just need to find the right teaching tools.  Any suggestions?

At least they seem to have mastered one concept...

"Hey Mumma!  I fink its time for dessert!"