Teaching Telling Time

Ready to teach telling time to your students? Read this blog post for some creative and interactive ways you can make telling time a breeze.

Telling time is a very tricky skill for some students. Especially in a digital world, trying to instill and reinforce learning analog clock skills is extremely important. When most students visualize a clock, they see a car dashboard, a cell phone, a computer screen, a television. They don’t immediately think a round clock hanging on a wall with numbers and two hands. The language of “half past” and “quarter to” become increasingly hard concepts to grasp.

This is a content area that a majority of my students struggle with from year to year so I thought it would be a perfect time to write a blog post about some ways to teach time in your classroom so that your students can master this skill once and for all!

Paper Plate Clock

This is usually one of the first projects I have my students do when we are introducing time. The paper plate reinforces the “round clock” I want them to visualize. You can get fancy with it and use two plates and have the hours on the first plate and the minutes underneath on the second. Whatever way works for you and your students! I use this as a quick and easy assessment during transitions or down time. When students are coming back from lunch, I give them a time to find on their clock and they have to move the hands to the correct time. I love how quick and effective this is for my students and I get to assess their skills multiple times throughout the day.

iPad Apps for Telling Time

My students absolutely love getting on the iPads during math centers. I have some great apps downloaded for my students to practice their time skills.

Telling Time Packet

My students love these telling time worksheets. These worksheets are great for morning work, seat work, independent work, centers and more! There are a variety of activities to choose from including cut and paste, interactive notebooks, extra practice and focuses on telling to the nearest hour, half hour, quarter hour and minute.

Telling Time Books

I am all about displaying books in my library that students can look through during centers or even recess! You’d be surprised at what a little “book suggestion” will do to peak interest! I like putting time books on top on my shelves or even creating a bin dedicated to telling time. Here are some great books for you to display during your time unit.

There you have it! I hope these resources are helpful to you and I hope you can incorporate them into your telling time unit this year!

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One Response

  1. I love that you have books included. I always try to find good math books to reinforce concepts. Thank you for sharing!

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