Time Telling, with Paper Plates...

So today i've been working with the lil bro to teach him the time. He is dyscalculia and has high functioning autism. He has forgotten a lot of stuff he learnt as a child as he has gotten older.
In order for him to become more independent, we decided he needed to learn the time.

He is a very hands on boy, and just talk talk talking at him causes him to zone out, so i thought id try out this idea i'd seen ages ago on Pinterest. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/17592254769069415/

The idea here is to take paper plates, one with the clock face on top, and the 5-30 minutes on another plate underneath, with flaps cut around so you can peek underneath. 

In order to understand what LB knew, i got him to draw on the clock face. I asked him to 'draw the clock face' and he looked at me like i'd gone off!! I explained to him thats what its called, and got him to draw a face on the clock so he'd remember. He's also a lefty, so had to draw the arrows of clockwise onto the plate for him!

So we went on to begin learning that each side is either past or too, and goes around in 5s, however LB's brain works slightly different and he was very interested in the little minutes in between, i tried explaining what they were to him, and he insisted i drew them on,because he'd remember better! Eventually he got so confused, as there was too much info on one plate he couldn't take it in... so we started again.

We took another plate, drew on the clock face, and split it in half so it said TO and PAST. (LB already knew about O'clocks) I re explained its basically the 5 times table up to 30 on the Past side, and then it works its way back round on the TO side.


I wrote this information on a separate plate to show him, and he could use it to refer too if/when he got stuck.

We moved the hands around the clock, counting. Once he'd cracked the PAST side, we moved onto the TO side. He picked it all up so quickly!!!





Then, just to be sure he had the right idea i drew around a glass, and made up some clocks for him to practice with. He got every single one right! HIGH FIVE LB!


I was so proud, in the space of an hour and a half, he'd learnt to tell the time.
Yes, we had a few hiccups, like him getting upset over having to be re-taught all this info, and things he knew. I solved this by saying "you tell me where you're stuck and i can help you, if you say nothing and act all moody we're not going to get anywhere, are we?"  (solved the past/to problem)
And, also the fact that i overloaded the plate with so much info he couldn't take it all in. This was my fault, as i didn't think about it. So we took a break, started over on *SIMPLE, QUICK, and PRECISE* information and instructions, and i also moved extra distractions, such as glasses, coasters ect away from his view. and Viola, it worked :)