Learn about Time for Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time is coming for a lot of North America and Europe in March, so it’s a fine time to talk about time! If you’re wondering, Wikipedia has a post all about which countries (or parts of countries) observe DST and when, as well as a timeline of when different countries the formerly observed it abolished the practice.

Of course if you’re talking about time, you need a clock, so first you can make a paper plate clock with this tutorial from Mum in the Madhouse. (Aside: is it true some kids aren’t taught how to read an analog clock anymore? It seems so foundational to how we teach time I can’t imagine it’s true, but I’ve heard people on the Internet say so.)

While you’ve got the paper plates out you can make your own sundial with these instructions from Krokotak. So fun!

Happy Homeschool Nest has a bunch of great free printables to do with telling time, including sheets on how to tell time, parts of a clock, matching time on an analog and a digital clock and more. You can grab these printables by signing up for email updates on their site (scroll all the way down).

Play with time and learn how to read a clock and write the time with these clock playdough mats from This Reading Mama.

And if you want to read about time, what it is, how it’s different on Earth and other planets, how people have tracked time through history, what philosophers have thought about time and more, check out The Book of Time by Clive Gifford. This information-packed book also includes information on how different clocks work, the history of alarm clocks, how accurately measuring time allows GPS to work, and of course time zones and Daylight Saving Time.

It also covers geologic time, how we measure the age of very old things like trees and fossils, life spans of various creatures on earth, body clocks and what happens in your body through the day and through a lifetime, animals’ concepts of time, and how often certain natural occurrences happen.

There’s also some information about space time, if time travel is possible, paradoxes and the future of time. It’s a fun book for kids who are interested in time and to get them (and maybe you, too) thinking about time in different ways.

About the book: 96 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by words & pictures, suggested retail price $24.99.

Telling Time with Apple Clocks

Make an Easy Clock for Teaching Time

Teach Kids to Tell Time with Books

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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