If your kids are learning how to tell the time and need some extra time telling practice, then you're going to have to try this fun trampoline clock activity. It's a great way to work on telling time and burn off excess energy.
My five year old son J lives and breathes numbers and math (which we now know is his hypernumeracy!). So when he started referring to the trampoline as a giant clock, I wasn't really surprised. But then I spotted him hopping around the trampoline as if he was the minute or second hand ticking away. And I had an aha moment!
I figured why not actually turn the trampoline into a clock and let him do some time telling practice. I mean how fun would that be for him to see his idea come to life?
So that's what I did. I took his idea and made it a reality by drawing some numbers around the trampoline. Then I let the boys come up with their own telling time activity ideas.
Time Telling Practice & Trampoline Activity: What You'll Need
For this gross motor time activity, you'll need:
- Trampoline - Hopefully yours is round, but no biggie if it isn't. You could always draw a round clock face in the middle of the trampoline regardless of what shape yours is.
- Sidewalk chalk - To draw your good old fashioned analog clock face onto the trampoline.
Simply draw large numbers around the trampoline using the chalk so that it looks like one giant clock. That's all you need to do to prep for this awesome activity. By the way, you don't need to draw minute or hour hands or anything. That's where the kids come in.
Teaching Time has Never Been this Fun!
I didn't really have much of a plan for how we were going to do this clock activity. I was following my son J's lead here after all. But I was positive that he would come up with some cool ways to work on time telling practice.
First, he quickly declared that he was going to be the hour hand and asked K to be the minute hand. I also was instructed to be the minute hand and eventually the second hand later on. So I started calling out random times. Then the kids used their entire bodies to practice pointing the hands to the correct time like they were one giant interactive clock.
The boys also jumped around the clock. They would call out the numbers as they jumped on them like 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock, etc., which made for some fun gross motor time telling practice.
They also came up with another cooperative way to practice. For this particular idea, one kid would jump on one number as if he was the hour hand while the other jumped on another number as if he was the minute hand. Then J would call out the correct time based on where they were both jumping.
See I knew my boys would come up with some amazing game ideas even without me having some formal telling time lesson in mind!
You could also use two pool noodles, one long and one short, to use as clock hands. There are tons of possibilities for expanding or modifying this time telling activity.
Afterwards, J grabbed the chalk and added some extra things to the clock. You'll see below that he went along and added lines for every minute on the clock. Perhaps he thought it made it into a more official and more correct analog clock. Or maybe he just wanted to practice some more precise measurements of time. Not sure.
My boys absolutely loved this fun time telling practice activity on the trampoline. Not that I can take credit for the idea as it was all J's idea in the first place.
