Telling time and counting money... in time for p1

A friend mentioned in passing the need to teach her son how to tell time before he entered p1 next year. I thought I'd recount how I helped Andre manage the two things that most parents would agree are critical when starting school - how to tell time and count money.

Please note this post is not going to tell you HOW to teach the two things (what? am I a teacher now??) I'm just going to tell you how I helped Andre MANAGE the two issues (which is a nice way of saying that he wasn't very good at them when he started school, haha).

The funny thing is that both topics are in the p1 syllabus but yet the kids are expected to know them before starting p1, for pragmatic reasons. Discounting the maths whizzes, many kids find the concept of time and money a little confusing. This is because at that age, the maths they're more familiar with generally deals with numbers in a linear fashion, starting from 1. Neither time nor money handles numbers this way (well, money does but it's more complicated because you have to think about the decimals).

When it comes to time, the 60-minute hour concept is complex. Most kids can manage the hour and half-hour concepts but the minutes are tricky. Andre only grasped this concept fully when he learned the 5 times tables, then Kenneth taught him how to count in 5 minute intervals. It was quite effective. Motivation helps - another mother said if you tell your kid, "20 minutes before you can watch tv!" or "half an hour later, I'll give you a piece of chocolate", he'll catch on pretty quickly. Actually, you'll find that telling time isn't that critical a skill in the beginning anyway, ie the kids are herded like sheep to all their classes. Unless, like another mother reminded me, your kid wants to know how many more minutes till recess. LOL. And even then, the solution is simple - get a digital watch lor.

As for money, we tried to teach Andre before he started school but he found all the cents confusing. When you've only learnt how to count to 100 and add single digits mentally, 65 cents minus 25 cents is way complicated. It also took him a while to apply the concept of 100 cents = $1, ie how much change to get back if you give $1 and the item costs 40 cents? After a few sessions of playing shop (and disastrous change-giving), we decided it would be easier to just give Andre his pocket money in 10-cent denominations. So if the item costs 50 cents, it's just 5 coins. Simple.

Another solution I noticed that parents frequently used was to give their kids $1 coins or $2 notes. Since almost nothing in a primary school canteen costs over $2, the kid just hands over the note and trusts the auntie to give back the correct change. Of course it's ideal if the child actually knows how much change he should get, but he'll figure it out eventually.

The first day of school, we packed a snack for Andre and because parents were allowed on Day 1, we watched him dutifully sit down with his buddy at recess and eat his snack. On Day 2, relishing his new-found freedom, he marched up to the ice-cream stall and said "I want the colourful ice-cream." Later, he happily told me the auntie had said, "Very good, you know what you want!" Within the first week, he had bought French fries, crackers and even a can of 100Plus from the vending machine. This last one, he bought because it was the only drink in a can and he thought it was like Coke (soft drinks are forbidden in our home). He was so short he even had to enlist his buddy's help to put in the coins for him. I'm not sorry to admit that I laughed mercilessly at him when he told me it tasted funny.

So I will say this, if your kid is a greedy gut like mine, nothing will stop him from getting his snacks. Not being able to count money is but a minor inconvenience.