What is a New Year?
This whole idea of a new year can be pretty confusing to a preschooler. Nothing feels majorly different – they went to bed one night (probably later than usual) and when they woke up in the morning they were told it was a new year. That can be pretty confusing when you don’t really understand what a year is to begin with.
Helping young children understand what a year is has a lot to do with making sure that they understand the calendar, and even smaller unites of time. These are incredibly abstract concepts, and with the exception of smaller units of time (seconds and minutes) they can’t really be observed.
I created this set to help my students visualize all of these units of time so that they can begin to understand the vocabulary and sequence the units of time correctly. While fully understanding these concepts will take time and actual life experience. Being able to use the vocabulary correctly is helpful as they begin to explore.
The set includes:
- A ring book with visuals and explanations of time (i.e. “a minute is 60 seconds” etc.)
- Vocabulary cards with the same visuals
- A dice for additional games and practice (can be used to match what is rolled with the correct vocabulary card, or the corresponding page in the ring book)
- A Fill in the blanks page – you can print this as a worksheet, or print on cardstock and laminate so that it can be part of a math center and children can fill in the blanks with a dry erase marker.