It can be really hard for young children to grasp the concept of time. “In 5 minutes” doesn’t always mean a lot to them, which can lead to frustration for both parent and child. And even when they do understand time, reading the time on a watch face can sometimes take a while for a child to master too.
I was really interested to hear about a new type of watch from Madame Irma, that aims to solve these problems and make understanding time easier for young children, and luckily we were sent one of these watches for R to try out and see what he made of it.
Rather than displaying numbers on the watch face, the Madame Irma watches show colours for the hour, and animals for the minutes – or to show precision.
This aims to make understanding the time more accessible to little ones who have still not mastered their number recognition, or can not yet count and understand digits.
Rather than saying “we’ll go in 5 minutes” you can show your child “when the big hand reaches the mouse, then it’s time to go” This can be a lot simpler to understand.
If you want to tell them a general time, such as a whole hour, you could say, when the small hand is on the yellow section, then it’s time to pick your brothers from school, for example.
R loved wearing his watch, and feeling like a big boy with a real watch on.
There is a variety of colours available, and we got the yellow which is nice and bright and pretty gender neutral too. It’s easy to put on and off with a traditional belt watch strap and the quality and build of the watch all seems good.
The strap features animals, just like the ones you see on the watch face.
The only issue I can think of with the design is that I think the watch winder is too easy for children to get to, to mess around and adjust the time – because it is really easy to turn this. Maybe other children would not get into that, but I had to mention to mine a few times to please stop moving the time around! They were fascinated with twisting the winder and seeing the watch hands go round.
Overall, I really like the concept of these watches. It’s a great visual idea, and is easy for children to use and understand, and the watch looks great too!
Find out more about Madame Irma watches and buy at www.irmatime.com
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Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.