Story Stretchers: Telling Time

Will has been interested in learning to read an analog clock ever since Aunt Casey and Uncle Dub got him a couple of toy clocks for Christmas. Often in the evening, he'll tell me "Let's get out my clock and I'll set it for what time I'm going to get up in the morning". :) We have the Melissa and Doug wooden clock with shape pieces for the numbers and also a Learning Resources clock that shows digital and analog time. For awhile now, Will has been able to tell time to the hour and half hour. We're just now starting to introduce quarters.

A couple weeks ago, we borrowed this book from the library and it really increased our clock play recently:

What Time is it Mr. Crocodile? by Judy Sierra

Mr. Crocodile types up his to-do list for the following day with times listed beside each item. Throughout the book, he checks off each task at the appropriate time and each illustration includes a clock for the reader to check against the schedule. This has been great for Will to coordinate with his clock play. We even got a look at Roman Numerals on one of the clocks. Also in the story line is his obvious disdain for a certain set of "pesky monkeys". But in the end, he befriends them and changes the wording of his to-do list for the following day.

I recently found these flashcards at Office Max when I was there purchasing the circle tags for the drink glasses at Will's birthday party. Will has a thing for flashcards. We have several different sets. These are just the hour and half hour cards shown. In the box, there are also quarter after and quarter till cards and a few other random times. What I liked about this exercise is that it reminded me to explain to Will that the hour hand is not directly on top of the hour number unless it's the start of the hour (o'clock). So when it's 1:30, the hour hand is between one and two. I just explained that in most cases (except for example 12:30, 12:45, etc.) the hour is the smaller number on one side of the hour hand. We're still working on that.

I think Will might like his own watch this Christmas! :)