A Matter of Time

Girlie found it a bit difficult to learn to tell time.  Most of the clocks in our home are analog because it’s what Dearest and I prefer, and they are a great help with teaching math concepts.  Girlie admitted yesterday she prefers to look at digital clocks.  It doesn’t really matter, though, because whether she can tell me the time or not, she has no concept of what it really means.  She doesn’t understand the passage of time.

This is another aspect of Girlie I have found very challenging.  Because humans live largely by the clock, (too much, I think, but that’s a different subject) we’re used to giving ourselves time limits and learning to pace ourselves accordingly.  But not Girlie.  She is unable to estimate if something happened 5 minutes or an hour ago; if an event was a week, a month, or a year ago, because she can’t perceive what periods of time feel like.

A nifty little gadget called a Time Timer - an analog timer face with a red disk that disappears with the passage of minutes - helps a little bit, but we can’t have them everywhere.  Girlie's OT has been using them for several years, and we have a wrist model, but Girlie doesn't like wearing it because it's rather large.  We also have a timer that looks like a tape measure; the metal 'tape' is pulled up showing the desired number of minutes, and it lowers back down into the casing as the minutes elapse.  It doesn't matter what they look like; timers are all the same, right?  No; in fact, these timers are different than most because they show a tangible decrease in the size of what is left, rather than just a smaller number.

Another technique we use is showing Girlie, on our huge dining room clock, exactly how many minutes she has to finish her meal or complete her homework.  We do this by pointing to the beginning and end times and using a finger to follow the path the minute hand will take.

It is difficult to know how much is sinking in, or whether Girlie will ever fully understand the concept.  We'll keep at it for however long it takes, though, because when it comes to teaching – or learning – any time is the right time!

The free pattern for this knitted clock can be found here!