Using Wii Party and Mario Kart to teach Time

Teaching Time is notoriously difficult and can be full of misconceptions and confusion, therefore I decided to take a more practical approach when revising Time with my lower set Year 3 maths class this summer term.

I have found many children are unaware of time passing and how long different activities or daily events last. A recent example of this was displayed after a school trip to the Colchester Zoo where the children were adamant the coach journey took 4 hours on the coach when writing their recounts!

So when it came to planning for this term’s Time lessons I took the decision to use the Wii during the starter and input of each lesson. I began by playing a game from Wii Party called Stop Watchers, which is one of the many mini games available. The aim of the game is to estimate when you think the right amount of time has passed. The amount of time is displayed initially and then hidden from view, so the children are encouraged to think and count carefully to ensure they are the most accurate competitor and press the button when they believe that the correct amount of time has passed.

During the game the children without the controllers raised their hands when they thought the time was up and were engaged throughout even though they were not holding a controller. It was interesting to watch children who were unsure and would click the button when other children raised their hand or when the person next to them had pressed the button. However, they soon realised the other children had misjudged the time so learnt to count carefully for themselves to guarantee a more accurate time. After this I used a stop watch to time one minute and the children sat down when they thought a minute had passed. Their judgements became more accurate after each game.

We played other games such as Chin Up Champ to see how many chin ups could be completed in 10 seconds and Jangle Wranglers where they have to ring a bell to round up as many sheep as they can in 30 seconds. After the challenge was complete I asked questions such as ‘Who completed the most chin ups in 10 seconds?’, ‘Who completed the least chin ups in 10 seconds?’, ‘How many more chin ups did player 3 score than player 1?’ This led on to practical activities around the classroom which challenged the children to follow their own line of enquiry for ‘How many.... can you do in 60 seconds?’ Some children chose star jumps, ball in a target and other practical activities. This enabled the children to gain a sense of time passing and what can be achieved or completed within the time.

During another starter and input, I also used Mario Kart where the children raced one another in their best time possible. As a class we analysed the final lap times which needed to be heavily guided for the first couple of turns. Using the Time Trials option we discussed the time differences between the competitors and I asked questions such as ‘How much faster did player 2 have to be to have beaten player 1?’ The children could soon solve calculations between the different lap times of the competitors using Counting On.

Using the Wii was a great way to engage children and to present Time in a practical context.