Getting B To Tell Time Faster

Telling time.  Have you had problems with this in your home?  We sure have.  Every time I would spend time on the clock with B, it would take him a long time to tell me what time it was.  Then I figured out was going on.  He had the 1 - 12 hour placements down pat, but he was struggling with the minutes.  No matter if the minute hand was at 10 or 50, he would start at the top of the clock and count all the way around, "5, 10, 15, 20..." until he got to where the minute hand was.  So last month, I cut up a cereal, wrote increments of "5" on the pieces and taped them to the back of the clock in our family room.

What a difference this has made!  I don't need to know that it's 9:18; I just ask him to round to the nearest 5 and tell me what time it is (9:20 in this picture).  I ask him what time it is several times a day.  Instead of groaning, he looks right up, tell me the time happily, and then goes back to what he was doing.  :o)  Once we feel he's really got them down and knows what increment of 5 each of the 12 numbers on the clock represent, I'll start removing the cereal box pieces, one by one.  The last ones to go will be the 15, 30 and 45.

We tried this once before, last year.  I bought a clock kit at Michaels and B and his Nana sewed it together.  Then I added the extra 5 - 55 pieces and we hung it up in the family room on the wall over the desk.  Within a week, the cats had jumped off the desk to the clock and destroyed it!  *sigh*  They can't get at this clock.  The bottom of the clock is over my head and there is no furniture under it from which to jump.  Thankfully, they've shown the clock additions no interest whatsoever.

BTW, did you notice something wrong with our family room clock?  Look at the 4.  In Roman numerals, 4 is IV, not IIII.  We have had this clock for 6 years and neither the hubs nor I noticed this before I took the clock down to add the the cereal box letters!  LOL  We just knew that that place value was the 4th hour, so we never bothered to look closely enough.  Now we know why we got the clock so cheap!  ;o)