Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion when did your gifted child learn to tell time

at what age did your gifted child begin to understand the clock--both analog and digital and at what age was it really mastered?

I know my DS8 really had it mastered by 4 1/2 - when he started his final year of preschool. At that point, he wanted to wear an analog watch and could tell time to the minute and do things like tell you what time it would be in 20 minutes or what time it had been 1/2 hour ago. I remember the watch because the preschool teacher thought it was pretty unusual. I am not exactly sure on when he started to understand it though.

not mastered, but dd 2.10 learned to tell time to the hour digital and analog last month after a 2 sec explination by me. Haven't really showed her anything else...so am interested to hear.

Mine both had some trouble with non-digital clocks. Dd#1 I can comfortably say couldn't reliably tell time on an analog clock/watch until she was about 9.

thanks everyone. My DD3 has some interest and does OK on digital clocks, but has trouble beyond the hour on analog clocks. I am not really showing her, but I know she is interested and she gets frustated that she doesn't fully understand it. I've wondered if I should spend a little time explaining it to her more directly because I think she would like to understand it. She is 3.5 and is more verbally gifted than mathamatically gifted but is pretty strong in that area,but probably not like some of the really mathmatically gifted kids on here. I guess I am surprised she doesn't get it all yet, but want perspective on what is normal even among gifted kids.

My DS7 (almost) :-) Was totally fascinated with clocks and pretty much had time telling down before 4

My DD learned to tell time so gradually that it's hard to say when it all came together. In her 3yr preschool, they'd say see the clock, when the hand moves to here, we will do X. When she was 4, we started adding 2 mins on the clock to know when we should stop brushing teeth. In K, at 5 she just knew it all. These were very easy nostress ways of learning that worked for her. Have fun with it.

We also had a toy talking clock but no one here liked it. I'm not sure why - seems like a good idea. There are also fun books with clock hands that move.

If you have a not needed, old clock it is fun to open it up an see what is inside.

Timex has kids' learning watches... They have different colors for different information (hours vs. minutes for instance). We got DS one when he was probably 2 or 3 and somewhere in there he learned.

Ds was about 4 when he learned to tell time on an analog clock. We checked out a video about telling time from the library. He watched it a few times, and knew how to tell time. Dd wasn't interested in time until 1st grade, but she picked it up right away.

Wolf was reading digital clocks correctly somewhere around three and analog by 5's by 4 1/2. Not sure exactly when he got the minutes down though.

Bear is almost three now and could care less. He's not fascinated by numbers like Wolf is.