Fun Clock Learning with Scratch for Preschoolers
Mayumi Ueno, Tokyo University of Technology (Japan)
Abstract
For young children and children with developmental disabilities, learning how to read a clock can be a daunting task. Now that analog clocks are no longer used and digital clocks are becoming more commonplace, children's opportunities to learn how to read clocks are diminishing. Clock learning also includes ideas such as angles and ratios. It is useful for later arithmetic learning. Elementary school education in Japan is carried out in accordance with the curriculum guidelines established by the Ministry of Education. In the first grade of elementary school, students will learn how to read the clock, and in the second grade, they will learn the relationship between day, time and minutes. Routine clock learning at home is also important in terms of building the basic skills for those learning. So I wondered if there was a way for preschool children to have fun and learn. I taught the mothers of the children how to program the clock making with Scratch and tried it on each child. In this paper, I report on the practice of three pairs of mothers and children who have become able to read the clock as if they were playing a game.
Keywords: Preschoolers, children