Taking Time

"In a minute!" "Hang on a sec!" "Just a moment more..... "

How many times do your kids hear these words?? Mine?? All the time :) Mostly, they have no concept of time, they know that if I say "in a minute", its usually longer than " just a sec". And thats about as far as it goes.

Today, I wanted them to see time "move" so to speak. And so I gathered the things I would need to make a sand timer.

To begin with, Amahli and I had to sift the sand to rid it of the big lumps.

Jared then helped the thump holes in two lids, making them match over each other.

We filled one jar with sand and sealed the lids to the jars. We added glue gun to seal. (NOTE: THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT SOLUTION. Dont ask me how I know. Just trust me. You need a really stong gorilla grip glue to hold these jars together)



We then wrapped them in ribbon (Also should have been a more secure twine maybe)
I then let him turn it over... and we watched the sand trickle through the glass.

They thought this was so cool! We talked about how long it took to all pass through the holes, the patterns the sand made, that we couldnt really speed it up, that it flowed at the same pace every time.

I then used it to time things around the house... it takes Jared 6 laps of the backyard for one sand cycle. It takes Amahli two sand cycles to go to the toilet and get dressed ( it would have taken one cycle but she panicked at being timed and thus chucked a wobbly mid cycle which lasted half a sand cycle).

But mostly, they just enjoyed watching time pass :)