Learn about Telling Time

It’s just about time for Daylight Saving Time to start in most of the United States (and it’s coming up in other places soon), so it seems like a good time to talk about time.

As an aside, if your kids have trouble with the time change (or you do!) these tips from Tiny Beans might help.

If you want to start talking about time with kids, read The Grouchy Ladybug and use the printables from Math Geek Mama to talk about the times different things happen in the story and different ways to express time (in words, with numbers on a digital clock, and with numbers and the hands of an analog clock). The printables are free in her shop.

Another fun way to talk about time is with these printable playdough mats from This Reading Mama. They include a clock face with no hands and a space for writing a time in numbers. You can give kids a time, they make the hands of the clock with playdough and then put the hands where they need to be for the time you want.

123 Homeschool 4 Me has collected a bunch of great resources for learning about telling time, including games, craft projects and printables. They’re arranged by type of activity and the age of the kids you’re working with.

Proud to Be Primary’s telling time resources focus on telling time in the classroom and what concepts can be taught to different grades of students. The post mostly focuses on resources you can buy in her Teachers Pay Teachers store, which is great if you have a full classroom to teach.

You can also go big with your time telling practice by using a hula hoop as a clock! Check out the ideas at I Know It, and consider how fun this would be to do outside! You could use sidewalk chalk to draw the numbers, and use branches or even the kids themselves as the hands of the clock.

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Learn about Time for Daylight Saving Time

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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Have you read?

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