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.

Surprisingly late. Colin's been able to read a digital clock for a couple of years now (he's 6y2m now), I'd say, but it's not something he's ever been particularly interested in, and I have definitely not encouraged interest because it was convenient to be able to say it was bedtime whenever I felt like it! (And we're fortunate in having very un-clock-driven lives, so it didn't come up much.) Around the time he started school I realised I should buy him an analogue clock as we had none in the house! He still isn't totally utterly secure with analogue time, and dislikes time questions on maths sheets (though if he concentrates he can do them now). Curiously, about the only thing *I* remember from school maths before about the age of 8 is how much I hated clock questions. Nature or nurture? His teacher, interestingly, was very unsurprised.

Same thing at our house! They both read digital clocks pretty early, but neither were particularly interested in clocks. We just don't run our lives on a very tight schedule! We also eventually had to go out and buy an analog clock to teach DS to read one. I guess I should get that out for DD5 to take a look at now!

My 2E son could read digital clocks at three. He learned how to read an analog clock before he turned five--around the same time he started counting the amount of change I gave him. Once he was able to count by 5's easily, reading the analog clock was easy.

But there were some analog clocks and watches that he was not able to read. It took me a while to figure out that it was because there was not enough difference in the length of the clock hands.

I sat down with DS at age 3 1/2 and he learned it within a couple "sessions"...

It didn't come up in our day-to-day life until DC19's kindergarten year when clocks were necessary, but it came quickly after that for him and DC16.

DS8 got a watch (flik flak) for his 4th birthday because he was into telling time so I guess he had it mostly worked out when he was 3. I think his interest may have been sparked by some of the puzzles in the Math Storm Adventure game. He loved that game at that age. Anyone else know that game?

DD6 has enough grasp to get through the "time" section in math but has no interest in it.

Our son was just past 3. I remember because he used to drive his preschool teachers nuts. They'd try to fudge the time to get the kids going in one direction of the other and he'd pipe up with the correct time. One teacher used him to her advantage, though -- she made him the classroom clock monitor. She created the job just for him and said it worked great! He was in charge of giving 5 minute warnings for lunches, recesses, etc.

He was working on it at 2.5, but I would say he really got it for the most part around 3 to 3.5.

I remember the night my mother died, when he was 2.5, he got me up in the middle of the night because he was hungry--it had been a rough day and he hadn't eaten much. I was making him some chicken nuggets and he looked at the clock and said "3:10." I looked at the clock, and it was actually 2:15--which you might notice looks pretty much like 3:10! He was kind of hit or miss at that point, but it wasn't much longer before he had it down pat.

Lol! I still have not learned to read time without thinking about it, like most people seem to. My ds seemed to be on that path, but has learned at the regular age. They seem to have a lot more practice in his school than I recall having, but also I just never cared about it very much. Dd3.5 has started asking 'at what number on the clock are you going to come and get me?' so perhaps she has a bit more interest.

My DD learned at 5 in K when they introduced clocks. Learning time to the hour was not enough for her. She learned the 1/4 hour stuff in grade 1

My DS 3.5 we have not talked about time to much, but he does know that the hour hand shows what hour we are in.

I really don't remember with any but one of my kids. Her experience stands out for me because I had no idea she knew anything about telling time. When she was 3.5 I gave her the CAT5 assessment for kindergarten. She easily answered all of the time telling questions in the math section, indicating that somehow she had figured it out on her own. I'm pretty sure the questions were to the hour and half hour only, but still, I was impressed.

We never pushed time with DS6. He knew how to read a digital clock at age 4. He's now learning the regular clock in 1st along with his other classmates. But I will say, they just started maybe 2 weeks ago, and he's grasped the concept so extremely quickly and is leaps and bounds ahead of what he is supposed to know (they are only teaching :00 & :30, DS can tell you pretty much down to the minute, i.e., 4:17).

My PG older brother learned everything early and I wound up getting a bit of anxiety about everything he did early that I didn't understand instantly and early. My mom didn't think he was PG, she thought I was slow. I panicked whenever asked the time, although I could figure it out quickly enough if it was just for me.

So, I got all panicky about time telling until perhaps my sophomore year of college, long after I learned I was gifted, too. Similar problems with telling right from left (mastered answering R/L questions in middle school) and reading large numbers aloud (mastered post college.) In each of these situations, I was okay figuring out something silently, but not if someone asked me a time, left/right, or big number question.

My son (not tested) is now 4.6.

He can tell time to the minute.

It was an ongoing process starting when he was just turned 3. First he told time to the hour, then the half hour, then the quarter hour. At about the same time, he had learned each number represented "counting by 5's", and he caught on to telling time in 5-minute increments.

One of his favorite "toy" requests since he turned 3 has been clocks. He adores them and would buy a new one every time we're in a store if I let him.

Analog came after digital. He had digital down pat at a little after three; approximately the time he was able to recognize numbers past 60.

One way I taught my son to pay attention to the time was to tell him we were going to do something he wanted to do at, say, 3:00. I would then tell him to come get me at that time. He was motivated that way. When he got that down, I told him to come get me at 3:15, and so on. I "whittled" it down to the minute.

I strive to teach real life skills in a real life setting.

That's a great idea. My son likes to point out when I'm late, too.

DS had analogue sussed by early 2s. He was desperate for a watch and had to wait until his sister was born (2.5) for her to bring it for him. He was irritatingly pedantic about it until about 3.5 when he finally came to accept that 'it's about half past three' was not lying when it was 3:27. I was very impressed because I remember struggling to get it sorted when I was about 8.

Digital clocks, certainly in the 3s for both kids. Analog time-telling was one of the few things DD actually learned in K and 1. Frankly she still doens't have it down 100%. The spatial skills it draws upon are not her strengths.

However, we also have no analog clocks in the house--not even one!

DD10 was three when she was able to tell time on the analog clock. She refused to learn with digital clocks until she turned five because she didn't like the "funky numbers."

DD8 was six or seven before she could recognize all the times on the analog clock. She could tell time on the digital clock at age five (she had a lot of fun setting the alarm for various times on her digital alarm).