Teaching children the concept of time is not easy: our way of conceiving time is very different from theirs and we often tend to use a language that they are not yet able to understand.
As a parent, sooner or later, each of us receives a barrage of funny questions, such as: what is yesterday? When does it arrive today?
But these are questions that we find funny precisely because our concept of time has evolved, while that of our girls and our boys is growing, just like them. During childhood development, in fact, the perception those children have of time changes and evolve, structuring itself according to their age and their experiences. So, how to explain the concept of time to children in an appropriate and age-appropriate way? Give theme sense of time of school, studying and play. Parent should also use their free time in different types of gaming like best online pokies australia for real money.
When do children perceive time?
Girls and boys begin to perceive time from birth, albeit in a way closely linked to their meager life experience, and will continue to change their perception of time throughout childhood; depending on the experiences that will be offered to them and of the learning they will derive from them.
In particular, three precise moments can be clearly distinguished in which the way girls and boys perceive time change.
The perception of time between birth and three years
The newborn learns the existence of what we call time exclusively from the continuous repetition of practical experiences: awakening, changing, eating, burping, and playing with mum and dad, sleeping and so on, all over again.
Also the alternation of day and night , therefore of the hours of light and dark , helps to realize that life is made up of moments that recur circularly , arriving, moving away, returning and ending again.
We cannot yet speak of a “succession” of events, because the linearity of the concept of time will make its appearance at a much later age, but precisely we must imagine that at this age “time” is like a large circle, which every day proposes the unfolding of family activities.
For this reason, it has long been argued that it is important to offer newborns consolidated routines and habits that are always the same.
Telling the newspaper
As they grow and age, another useful strategy to help children familiarize themselves with the concept of time is to talk about everyday life. Talking with children is very important for their neurolinguistic growth, but it is also important because through our stories they can begin to fix certain concepts in their mind. Explaining to them what happens in the various moments of the day helps them a lot to project the concept into reality , to lower it into practical experience : which, let us remember, is the only learning criterion that children have up to the development of abstract thinking.
Explain the concept of time between three and six years
Around the age of three , girls and boys begin to develop the ability to conceive time in a linear way , therefore as a succession of events that flows in one direction only, from “before” to “after”.
Clearly, it is not a faculty that appears suddenly and not all children develop it at the same time: every child is different and has his own time, even for the development of this kind of knowledge.
What, on the other hand, we can say is similar in all children is their aptitude to learn from the experiences they can enjoy.
Therefore, even in this period of growth – which generally coincides with preschool attendance – it is very important to provide them with meaningful learning opportunities in relation to this topic.
Graphically show the succession of time
Using the didactic calendars it is possible to represent in a practical way what “succession” means that is what we mean when we say that one moment comes before and another comes after. In this way, girls and children learn to recognize the days of the week, their succession, they can independently update the calendar and thanks to the emoticons they can also express their mood. You can change your mood also by browsing best nz online casino sites.
Give physicality to the passing of time
One of the reasons why the concept of time is so difficult to explain is that time is invisible. It cannot be seen; it cannot be touched, nor smelled, nor heard. Unless we try to give it a bodily dimension, which can be seen or felt by listening. A great idea is to use children’s hourglasses, explaining that the time to wait before you can go to the park, for example, is the time it takes for the sand to flow from one side of the hourglass to the other. Or, if we prefer to listen to the passing of time, we can use a sound timer, explaining that the time to wait is that of the chimes marked by the clock.