We are both teachers and the parents of a beautiful, usually pretty chilled, but always ravenous 4 year old.

One morning we were lucky enough to get a lay in, being woken up at the very late time of 6.58am, by our very wide awake daughter Maisie! 

Maisie asked when she could go down for breakfast, to which we replied “in 2 minutes”.  This lead to a huge unnecessary tantrum that took longer than 2 minutes to stop!

Reflecting on why this happened, we realised that she had no concept of time.  We could have said ‘2 minutes’ or ‘2 hours’, it would have still lead us to the same point…lots of tears, shouting and foot stamping!

We searched for a solution and came across the idea of using pictures and colours to represent time.  The idea of My First Watch was born.

Now instead of saying “you can go downstairs in 2 minutes” we can say “you can go downstairs when the small hand gets to the panda” giving Maisie a clear understanding that she doesn’t have to wait very long at all. 

Peace and harmony for everyone!