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Daylight Savings Crafts
Published 02.27.2009 | Permanent Link | Comments (6)
Celebrating Day Light Savings Craft & How to Teach your Child to Tell Time
By Brenda Ponnay
Setting all the clocks an hour earlier for Daylight Savings Time can sometimes be sort of a pain. I usually forget to do it myself---until I show up an hour late for church, that's always fun. This year I thought I'd get a jump on the chore and make it into a fun activity for kids. We've been talking about time and clocks in my house anyway so this was as good a time as any to start learning how to tell time.
First we made some good old-fashioned paper-plate clocks, the kind with a brad stuck in the middle. I didn't have any black construction paper for the clock arms so I used the only other black thing I had in the house and twisted some black pipe cleaners onto the brad. This ended up being rather fun because we made the arms of the clock point in all sorts of wrong directions. We stuck some bubble eyes on our clocks and called it "Craaaaaazy Time!" This didn't really teach us anything about telling time but it was loads of fun for the toddler and me. There's always time for "Craaaaaazy Time!"
Next we made some cards that I thought we might give out to friends and relatives for fun. I printed up small squares that say "Spring Forward" at the top, with a little reminder about changing the clocks at the bottom. Then we wound a pipe cleaner around a pencil to make a spring and fastened a little paper clock to each of the cards, as if it were "springing" out of the card. My nieces were pretty clever and decorated their cards as if the clocks were springing up out of a spring garden.
You can make cards like mine by downloading the Spring Forward card template.
All you'll need to assemble them are pipe cleaners (cut in half) and some tape to hold the pipe cleaner to the little paper clock. To attach the clock spring to the card, I just poked a small hole in the card and bent the end over on the back.
When we were done fooling around with our "Craaaaaazy Time" clocks and making fun cards to give out, we set down to do some serious learning about time.
I made up a bunch of small cards with pictures of various things that would signify certain times of day that my daughter would recognize. I actually illustrated the cards but I think cutting pictures out of a magazine would be fun too. For example a girl waking up in the morning would correspond with 7 o'clock, a plate of pancakes for breakfast would match up with 8 o'clock, etc.
Then I designed a big clock and some hands on my computer and printed them all out on card stock. I cut everything out and attached the clock hands to the clock face with a brad so that the arms were movable. Then we made a game out of it.
First I moved the arms around the clock and asked my daughter (and my nieces when they joined in later) to find the corresponding cards that would go with each hour of the day. At this point my three-year-old isn't really memorizing the clock's arm positions but she's getting familiar with them.
My older nieces were a little quicker at it and in another round of the game I made them draw a card from the stack and move the clock arms to match the right time. As they got the hang of it, I had them race each other to see who could find the right card the fastest to match a random hour that I set on the clock.
If you think your kids might like to play a game like this, you can download my How To Tell Time designs.
Or make your own with a paper plate, a few quick jotted numbers and a bunch of pictures from a magazine. I'd love to see what you come up with. (Please do leave us a link in the comments. We love it and usually feature it on our homepage!)
But whatever you do, just don't say I didn't remind you to turn your clock forward this coming Sunday*.
*March 8th 2009 (If you live in an area that uses Daylight Savings Time, that is.)
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About this column
This is a year-round Holiday column. Kids love Holidays. As parents we have come to appreciate how Holidays seem to help structure our lives. Plus, any excuse to have fun sounds good to us!
We'll admit it, now that we're parents, we secretly look for Holidays to celebrate and between National, Secular, Unofficial and Bizarre Holidays, we think there are enough days out there to keep us inspired every week.
This column will be a place where you can get inspiration for how to enjoy time with your kids. Crafting projects and ideas will be posted on Thursdays by our brilliant contributors (see below). Other fun ideas will be posted here throughout the week as the inspiration hits us!
About our Craft Contributors
Ellen Luckett Baker is the author of the long thread, a blog about handmade goods. She has always enjoyed making things, but the flexibility of staying at home with her two daughters along with the creative inspiration they provide has led her to craft on a daily basis. Combining her love of graphic design and sewing, she has created an Etsy shop selling machine embroidery designs and sewing patterns.
Ellen lives in Atlanta with her husband and two young daughters. She holds a B.A. in Art History and a Master's of Public Administration with a focus in Non-Profit Management.
Cindy Hopper was fortunate to be raised in a family who appreciated the arts. This background led to a Bachelor's Degree in Art Education. With a keen eye for design and color, Cindy has continued her love of art and is now passing her creative skills on to her three children. Cindy's family and friends are the beneficiaries of her passion for fun and meaningful creative projects. Cindy's personal blog, Skip to My Lou, has taken her love of a project to new levels. Postings keep the family busy -– from testing new recipes for holiday treats to designing and building floats for a neighborhood parade to making fabric rolls to hold crayons to creating themed parties. Cindy seems to have an unending supply of ideas for gifts, parties and rainy days.
Brenda Ponnay is a stealthy secret agent who juggles parenthood to her adorable daughter by day and freelance graphic design by night. Whether it's painting, baking, drawing, making castles out of card board boxes or just doing the laundry with flair, Brenda Ponnay has finally discovered (at the ripe old age of thirty-six) that what really makes her happy is being creative every single day.
Brenda lives in Southern California with her husband, daughter, three cats and thirty-seven pet birds. You can read about all her crazy adventures on her personal blog: Secret Agent Josephine.
Disclaimer
This column is only for entertainment purposes. Any recommendations or information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for advice by a trained professional. For a full statement of our site policies, please click here.
Comments (6):
lynne said:
I think this is a brilliant idea! A really simple and effective way of becoming familiar with telling time for little ones. I love your spring forward cards too they are cute as a button almost as cute as Bug and your nieces but not quite ;)
Posted on February 27, 2009 16:46
bethany actually said:
This is such a cute idea, but so simple! I love it.
Posted on February 27, 2009 17:04
maizzy said:
a very creative and adorable way to teach kids to do it... bug looks so cute... nya... It seems she enjoyed it so very much... :) cute!
Posted on February 27, 2009 17:06
BeachMama said:
Excellent Brenda, what a creative way of teaching time.
Posted on February 27, 2009 19:41
Diaper Cakes Becca said:
How crafty are you??? Wow. Great ideas, thanks!
We live in Phoenix where there is no Daylight Savings....which means we don't get news coverage about it. I always have to put up reminders so that I don't call my East Coast friends and relatives too early or too late!!
Posted on February 28, 2009 00:03
Susana said:
Oh Brenda, its such a great idea and cute illustrations as allways ^_^ !
Posted on February 28, 2009 10:37