If your child thinks 5 minutes is forever and 45 minutes is “just one more show,” you’re not alone.
Time is a slippery concept for little minds, and teaching kids to read clocks, wait patiently, or understand why bedtime comes every night can feel like you’re stuck in your own version of Groundhog Day.
Don’t worry. There are clever, playful ways to help your child master telling time, without running a marathon or building a clock tower in your living room.
Ready to make time skills a bit more fun?
Here are five ideas that fit easily into real family life—even on a Tuesday when your only plan is to hide in the loo for 45 seconds of peace.
1. Make a Giant Floor Clock
Children love things that are bigger than they are (it’s why they build towers out of anything not nailed down). Making a giant clock on the floor brings telling time down—literally—to their level.
Grab painter’s tape, paper plates, or whatever you have in the craft drawer that’s survived toddler hands.
Tape out a circle on the lounge carpet, number it with plates, sticky notes, or cardboard cut-outs, and find something long and sturdy for clock hands.
Now, let your child be the clock. “Can you show me 3 o’clock? What about half past six?” Not only does this get them moving, it helps them understand the relationship between the numbers and the position of the hands.
Bonus: it gives you a reason to clear up those stray socks under the sofa.
If you’ve got a group of kids, take turns being minute and hour hands. There’s just nothing like seeing your 4-year-old dramatically flop onto ‘12’ while their sibling points to ‘6’ and shouts, “It’s lunchtime!”
Want to make it more challenging? Call out times like “quarter past nine” or “ten to four” and see if they can show you. Suddenly, that looming analog clock in the kitchen is a lot less mysterious.
2. Storytime Timelines
Kids adore stories. They also have an uncanny knack for stretching bedtime stories until you’re reciting “The Gruffalo” with the enthusiasm of a sleep-deprived stage actor.
Use this to your advantage. After reading a favourite book or watching a short show, ask your child to help you build a timeline of what happened.
What came first? What happened in the middle? Did the Gruffalo get pudding before or after Mouse ran away?
Draw simple pictures or stick figures on paper, or even just lay out toys one after another to represent each event. This helps children grasp the idea of sequence—a crucial piece of time sense.
You can up the ante with older kids by challenging them to estimate how long parts of the story took. “Do you think it took longer for Little Red Riding Hood to walk to Grandma’s or for the wolf to eat the cake?”
Suddenly, you’re not just reading; you’re subtly laying the groundwork for understanding duration and sequence, which underpins everything from reading clocks to planning their school morning routine.
Research shows that children engage better and understand concepts more deeply when they’re embedded in narrative, which is why storytelling remains a powerful tool for learning time concepts.
3. Use Timers for Everyday Races
Minute timers, sand timers, kitchen timers: parents love them for a reason. Kids respond well to a visible, tangible countdown, and it turns even the dullest daily task into a game.
Need shoes on before school? Challenge your child: “Can you put your shoes on before the timer rings?” Suddenly, you’re not the world’s most nagging parent—you’re the referee in a very exciting race.
Use a sand timer for teeth brushing (the recommended two minutes feels much shorter if they can watch the sand fall). Or set a phone timer for tidy-up challenges, snack breaks, or transitions between activities.
Apps like Visual Timer or physical timers with big displays can help visual learners grasp the passage of time. The magic lies in making the invisible visible.
For children who resist transitions (hello, every toddler ever), timers provide a gentle, external authority: “The timer says it’s time to clean up!” It’s harder to argue with a beeping object than with Mum.
Just be sure to keep it light and playful. The idea isn’t to create a household of clock-watching stress-heads, but to help children understand how time passes and how to manage it.
4. Play Time-Themed Board Games
Games are the secret weapon of sneaky educational parenting. When you’re tired enough to consider cereal for dinner but still want to “stimulate young minds,” board games are the answer.
There are great options designed to teach time skills. The game ‘Tell the Time’ by Orchard Toys is beloved by teachers and parents for a reason: it’s simple, colourful, and keeps kids interested while they match digital and analogue times.
If you don’t have a specific time-telling game, try adapting games you already own.
Play “What time is it, Mr Wolf?” in the garden. Or create your own version of bingo with cards showing different clock faces—whoever spots 7:00 bedtime first, wins!
Card games and puzzles featuring clock faces can also flex those time-reading muscles. The goal isn’t relentless drilling, but helping children see time as part of everyday life.
Research from The National Association for the Education of Young Children confirms that play-based learning is one of the most effective methods for young children to absorb abstract concepts, including time.
5. Make Daily Schedules Visual
Most adults live by the clock, but children often need to see what’s coming next—especially if they’re not reading yet or the concept of “half past five” means zip.
Enter the visual schedule. This can be as simple as pictures stuck on the fridge showing the flow of your child’s day: wake up, breakfast, get dressed, play, lunch, rest, and so on.
For time-specific events, add a simple clock face next to the activity (draw it by hand—no one’s judging your wobbly circles). Over time, your child will start to connect “when the big hand is on the 6, it’s dinnertime.”
Magnetic boards, printable planners, or even a DIY craft project with velcro-backed cards work wonders.
Apps like Choiceworks allow you to build digital schedules for tech-lovers (and, let’s face it, for parents who need all the help they can get keeping things on track).
The predictability helps children feel secure, especially during transitions or on busy days. You might even notice your child reminding you about what’s coming next. Small victories, friends.
Making Memories and Mastering Minutes
Building time skills doesn’t require a maths degree or a Pinterest-perfect craft station.
With a little imagination (and maybe a roll of tape you can reclaim from your child’s next art project), you can sneak time concepts into everyday family life.
At the end of the day, it’s not about producing a pint-sized clock-watcher, but about helping your child grow confident in handling the rhythms and routines that make family life tick.
And if you get to laugh together along the way, well, that’s the best part of all.
Tea break, anyone?
