Teaching About Time and Money

Hands-on real life practice! Have her count real money, play store and work on making change, tell time on a real clock. Also work on elapsed time story problems (If I start cooking dinner at 5:30 and it takes 45 minutes, at what time will I be done?) Also, there are games and websites that you can use to reinforce the skills. At a teacher store or amazon.com you can find Time and Money BINGO or memory match games.

I've taught and tutored these concepts for years now...

Money:
Count by 5's, 10's, 25's. (don't forget to count by 10's starting with a 5 EX: 5, 15, 25)
Always give the child a routine to count coins. Step 1: Sort money into like piles. Step 2: Try to make dollar piles first if possible. Step 3: Count money with largest valued coin first. This is where counting by 5's, etc pay off. Step 4: Have the child write the answer with a dollar sign and decimal. I always told my kids that the $ and . are partners and that they can never be in the same room as the cent sign.
Also use money riddles: What 4 coins make $.45?
Once child understands how to count money, then start to make change.

If a child does not understand that coins are less than a dollar, take a fake dollar bill and rip it into 4 pieces and put a quarter on each piece. Likewise for the rest of the coins. This makes the abstract more concrete.

Time:
Explain that the hour hand only is on the number on the hour and then AFTER the number. Too many people ask, "What number is the long hand on?" It should be, "What number is the long hand on or AFTER? Get a JUDY clock to properly show how the clock works (sold in teacher stores pretty inexpensively). Talk about base 60. That means that when get to 60, we start over. (We use base 10 for regular counting and money). Use matching cards for kids that need something to physically move. One card says: 24 hours = The matching card says: 1 Day Talk about how many hours are in the day, days in the week, weeks in the year, etc. Don't forget about explaining leap year. :)

Let me know if you have a specific issue and I might be able to give you a better tip. :) And you're right...after second grade time and money are barely touched. This is sad because a lot of kids aren't developmentally ready to understand these very complex concepts until they are older. I've worked with 7th and 8th graders who never understood. Wasn't because they weren't able to understand it, it was because they weren't ready to learn it the few chances they were given it the first times.

Best of luck! And remember patience is a virtue. :)

Here's one idea... do some shopping (your really do have to LOOK and SEARCH to find one) and get her a wristwatch that actually has hands on it. Not digital. Walmart will usually have one or two to choose from (and dozens of digital ones)... and if you don't take your daughter with you, you can surprise her with it without her complaining (at least that is what works at our house.... if I take her with me, she isn't happy with any of the choices, lol).

My husband and I have had many conversations about the topic of time pieces recently. The newer generation tends to not even WEAR a watch. They don't need to... they have a cell phone or an ipod or some other tech device that has the digital time right there for them. A watch is a waste for them, when they have their phone on them 24/7. I think it is a little sad. I always LOVED my watch as a kid... (still do as an adult, too).

But get her a watch with hands on it and play around with it. Show her how the hands move and use a cheap paper plate to draw on and divide into sections. Divide it up into quarters and color them different colors with crayons. Then show her that 1/4 of the face of the clock = 15 minutes. 1/2 the face of the clock is 30 minutes. Then put dots for the 5 minute increments.... Number all the way around the plate from 2-60/1.
Have fun. It is a challenge when every clock in a typical house these days is a flashing digital LED. (We had one clock in our house that wasn't--the mantel clock. I bought one for my daughter's wall shaped like a flower, so she'd have the clock face and not digital).

When I taught 2nd grade, the funnest thing we ever did was when we did hands-on practice. I went to McDonalds and got an empty small drink, empty small fry, a couple of wrappers, etc. Actually my student teacher did it all. She got foam and labeled each price and the kids got to place their order and add totals, count money, subtract money to make change.....

Obviously, practice counting by 5s when doing time, practice counting by 15. If you make a paper clock out of a paper plate and card stock with one of those brass pin things-- write the word "MINUTES" on the long hand and write the word "HOUR" on the short hand.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I had other fun tricks but I can't think of them right now.

There are many great games out there that make drill-time fun, apply these skills and provide practice:

http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by...;

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http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by...;

http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by...;

http://www.learningresources.com/product/teachers/shop+by...;

School Zone workbooks, flash cards and cd roms are great and you can find them at Target, Walmart, and K-Mart

http://www.schoolzone.com/workbooks/time-money-fractions-...

Check out http://www.smartmath.britannica.com/landing_page_a2_wb?ut...

My kids liked their watches like these:
http://timeteachingwatch.com/

Yeah, I'm surprised at how little school time my son has spent learning how to tell time - maybe a couple weeks back in 2nd grade? He's in 5th grade now, and boy they sure are great about having him practice his cursive (seems like a waste to me), but he still has difficulty sometimes with a clock, and he only conquered money last year, and only because he has opportunities at home (me 'forcing' him to count his allowance money). I think like someone mentioned, maybe some kids aren't ready to learn it when the opportunity comes (I know my son wasn't). My youngest is in Kindy, and he already knows money (he's going to be our little 'businessman'), but still struggles with reading the clock. I like some of the suggestions you got on teaching time.

Being divorced when I have my kids for the weekend it seemed as if we were always going going going. And of course the kids always want something when they're with Dad. There were times when I had to say "I don't have the money for that now" or "let's wait on that". When money was better and we had a full day, go out to eat, see a movie, get new shoes etc. at the end of the day I would have them guess how much money we spent... of course they never had an idea how much because it wasn't something they pay attention to. When I did tell them, it was a shock, they had no idea. Now I can tell it did stick with them when they 'want' something now that is a little pricey you can see the wheels spinning in their head. Have fun....