Time Travel Trick

Learning Guide

A simple guide to lead you through the kickoff, the core challenge, and everything in between.

Mai’s Tips

1. Focus on labels: The core idea is that time itself doesn't vanish, only the label for an hour does. If the child gets hung up on 'losing' actual time, bring them back to the idea of renaming things. The strips are powerful here: they represent physical chunks of time, and you're just changing their names or skipping one in the sequence.
2. Abstract vs. Concrete: Children, especially younger ones, may struggle with the abstract nature of time. The paper strips are crucial for making it concrete. If they're struggling, reduce the number of strips to something more manageable (e.g., model a 6-hour period instead of 24) to grasp the skipping/repeating mechanism.
3. Clarify '24 hours': It's vital that the child understands a day always has 24 hours of duration. The activity helps illustrate that even if an hour label is skipped (spring forward), the sequence of physical time still covers 24 units. If they think the day literally becomes 23 hours long, reiterate that the events of the day still fill 24 physical hours, just with shifted clock labels.

For The Grown-Up

• A common mix-up: Time literally disappears/appears from the universe when clocks change.
• Try this: By building a physical model of 24 hours and explicitly removing/adding a label for an hour, they can see the physical duration of the day remains the same.
• Explain it like this: Changing the clock for Daylight Saving Time is like changing the name of a road sign. The road is still the same length and in the same place, but what we call mile marker 5 might suddenly be called mile marker 6. The mile itself didn't vanish.
• A big question to ask: If everyone on Earth decided to set their clocks forward by an hour right now, would the day actually be shorter?

Photo by Sami TÜRK on Pexels

1Breakfast Time Warp 5 min

• Start by looking at a clock visible from the breakfast table (wall clock, phone). Discuss their daily routine and how time helps them. Encourage initial thoughts on time changes.

  Ask them:

  • 'What time do you usually eat breakfast?'
  • 'What would happen if the clock suddenly jumped an hour forward, or an hour back?'

Know Before You Teach

• Good to know: Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a practice of advancing clocks during warmer months so daylight lasts longer into the evening. It is not observed everywhere.
• The change usually happens in early spring (spring forward) and early fall (fall back).
• If they ask: Why do we even do this? Some people believe it saves energy and makes better use of daylight. It started during World War I.
• It's working when: Child making a connection between the clock and their personal schedule.
• If they're stuck: Ask: 'What time do you usually eat breakfast? What if that time suddenly became an hour earlier or later?'
• Easier: Focus only on 'springing forward' and what it feels like to lose an hour of sleep.
• Harder: Ask them to consider who might benefit most or least from such a change.

Done when: Student shares initial thoughts about time changes.

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels

2Build Your Day Trackers 8 min

• Explain the challenge: build a model of a day. Have the child decide how to represent 24 hours using paper strips.

  • Younger child: Focus on making 24 distinct pieces. Help them count to 24.
  • Older child: Label each strip with an hour (1 AM, 2 AM...). Discuss joining them.

  Ask them:

  • 'How can we show 24 hours with these strips?'
  • 'What do you think we'd do with a strip to 'lose' an hour?'

Know Before You Teach

• Good to know: A day has 24 hours. Clocks help us measure these hours.
• Representing abstract concepts like time with physical objects helps make them concrete.
• If they ask: Why 24 hours? That's how long it takes for the Earth to spin once around. Ancient Egyptians were among the first to divide the day into 24 hours.
• It's working when: Child successfully creating 24 distinct 'hour' units, even if they aren't perfectly uniform.
• If they're stuck: Suggest: 'What if we cut a long piece of paper into 24 equal pieces? Or use 24 small blocks?'
• Easier: Just count out 24 small objects (e.g., LEGO bricks, coins) to represent hours, instead of cutting paper.
• Harder: Ask them to consider how a clock face represents 12 hours, but a day has 24, and how our strips could show that cycle.

Done when: Student has prepared 24 hour markers and predicted how to simulate time changes.

Photo by Nothing Ahead on Pexels

3The Great Time Agreement 6 min

• Introduce Daylight Saving Time (DST) as a collective agreement where clocks shift. The actual amount of daylight doesn't change, only how we label hours.

  Daylight Saving Time (DST) is when clocks are adjusted forward by one hour in spring ('spring forward') and backward by one hour in fall ('fall back').

  Ask them:

  • 'When we skip 2 AM and go to 3 AM, did 2 AM vanish?'
  • 'Did the moment of 2 AM disappear, or did we just call it '3 AM'?'
  • 'If we changed Tuesday to 'Wednesday', would Tuesday vanish?'

Know Before You Teach

• Good to know: When clocks 'spring forward', we skip an hour, e.g., 1:59 AM jumps to 3:00 AM. This means one specific hour-label isn't used that day.
• The total number of hours in the day (24) remains constant; it's how we label them that changes.
• If they ask: So we just pretend it's later? Yes, it's like everyone agrees to call the same moment a new name, so our activities shift with the daylight.
• It's working when: Child grasping the idea that the 'amount' of time in a day doesn't change, only how we track it.
• If they're stuck: Ask: 'If we changed the name of 'blue' to 'green', would the sky actually change color?'

• Easier: Focus only on the 'spring forward' idea, using their strips to literally 'skip' one.
• Harder: Ask: 'If a country decided to stay on Daylight Saving Time all year, how would that affect people who need to see the sunrise for work, like farmers?'

Done when: Student explains that the hour is not truly lost but its label changes, and it's an agreement.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels

4Spring Forward, Fall Back Model 9 min

• Guide the child to use their 24-hour strips to model time changes.

  1. Set up the day: Arrange 24 strips in order.

  2. Spring Forward (Skip an hour):

  • Ask: 'If we jump from 2 AM to 3 AM, how do we show the 2 AM strip isn't used, but the day moves on?'
  • Younger child: Remove one strip. Older child: Remove 2 AM, then shift subsequent labels back one slot.

  3. Fall Back (Repeat an hour):

  • Ask: 'When we fall back, we repeat an hour. How can we show that the clock goes from 1:59 AM back to 1:00 AM?'
  • Younger child: Add an extra strip (duplicate 1 AM). Older child: Show 1 AM (first), 1 AM (repeated), then 2 AM, etc.

Know Before You Teach

• Good to know: The physical length of a day is always 24 hours due to Earth's rotation. DST only changes how we synchronize our clocks to this rotation.
• If they ask: But if we skip 2 AM, don't we lose that hour of sleep? You sleep one hour less that night because the clock jumps, but your body clock eventually adjusts. The actual duration of the night is still there.
• It's working when: Child manipulating the strips to show the concepts, rather than just saying them.

• If they're stuck: Have them count out 24 blocks. 'If we remove block #2, how many blocks do we have? If we put block #2 back and then add another block #2, how many do we have?' Relate to the time labels.
• Easier: For 'spring forward', simply remove one strip and explain 'that hour label didn't get used today'. For 'fall back', place two strips with the same hour label next to each other and explain 'this hour label got used twice'.
• Harder: Ask them to think about how this affects something that runs on a very precise schedule, like an airline flight or a train.

Done when: Student successfully models both spring forward and fall back, explaining how labels change but the total day's duration does not.

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels

5Time Detective Debrief 2 min

• Have the child summarize their discoveries.

  Ask them:

  • 'What was the biggest surprise about the 'missing' hour?'
  • 'How did building your day tracker help you understand?'
  • 'Is it important for everyone to agree on what time it is?'

Know Before You Teach

• Good to know: Time is a continuous flow, but clocks are human constructs to measure and organize it.
• Collective agreements, like Daylight Saving Time, show how humans cooperate to manage daily life.
• If they ask: Does everyone do Daylight Saving Time? No, many countries don't, and even within countries, some regions opt out. It's a regional choice.
• If they're stuck: Show them the clock again and ask: 'Does this clock really control time, or just show us what time we agree it is?'
• Easier: Simply ask: 'Did the hour really disappear?' and let them answer yes/no based on their model.
• Harder: Ask: 'What would happen if half the country changed their clocks and the other half didn't?'

Done when: Student shares one key takeaway about time not being lost, but re-labeled.

Your Notes