Understanding the concept of time is a highly complex skill. Introducing the concept of time needs to start with students experiencing explicit durations of time to begin constructing an understanding of the passing of time.

 

Some introductory experiences to identify student's prior knowledge could include:

• How long is a minute?

• How would you describe it?

These questions are far deeper than simply asking students to state – “60 seconds” and alike. It is a question that is designed for students to explain, exemplify and in their own terms articulate what they know about the length of a minute.

 

Repeating this process of questioning with:

• How long is an hour?

• How long is a day? A week? A month or a year?

• How would you describe them?  

These questions prompt the students prior knowledge into their experiences with understanding these durations and units of time.

 

Students could also consider the following questions: 

Why do we measure time?

How do we measure time? 

Students can therefore be led into considering social and cultural perspectives on the purpose and context of time.

 

Finally, students can access some of their prior knowledge and experiences they bring to the topic by making predictions about what a minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes etc feels and looks like. That is, what can be achieved in these durations of time.

For example, students may predict and then test:

How long does it take to read a picture book?

How long does it take to drink a bottle of water? Make a sandwich? etc...

By setting a stopwatch (either individually or as a class) students can experience these durations first hand, and compare what they predicted to how long specific tasks actually took.