Prior to the lesson, collect various time-identifying devices such as a digital clock, an analog clock, a wristwatch, a monthly calendar, an appointment book, a kitchen timer, and an hourglass or small sand timer that measures 1, 2, or 3 minutes (many board games have such a timer). Add to this collection a thin paper plate, a sharp pencil, a bottle of water, and a clear drinking glass or jar. Place all of the items in a box so students do not see them before the lesson begins.
“Today we are going to learn about telling time. I have some items in this box that can be used to tell time. What do you think might be in the box?” (Students might name a watch or a clock.) Take examples of those items from the box and ask how these are alike or different from the timepieces students use. Point out the differences between analog and digital clocks and ask which kind of clock students find easier to read.
“These are examples of ways to tell time in hours and minutes. What can you use to tell time in days, weeks, months, and years?” (calendars) Take from the box a monthly or yearly calendar, and then show a page from an appointment calendar or day planner to encourage discussion about how we use timepieces and schedules every day.
“How can you tell a certain amount of time has passed, like how long it takes to cook something?” Students may talk about setting a timer on a microwave oven or using a kitchen timer. Display a kitchen timer and an hourglass or smaller sand timer and ask students to tell how these might be used for measuring a specific amount of elapsed time.
“Now I will show you a couple of ways to tell time that you may not know.” Display the bottle of water, clear jar, pencil, and paper plate for students to see. Ask volunteers to tell how they think any of those items might be used for telling time. Allow for a few wild guesses before continuing, and then pour about a cup of water into the jar. “If we set this open jar of water out in the sun on a hot, dry day, about how long do you think it might take for the sun to evaporate all of the water?” (Answers will vary by the average climate or humidity in different places, but guesses between two and four hours are reasonable.) “Suppose you knew that it would take about three hours for the water to dry up. How could you use that to tell time?” (Students’ examples may include timing their outdoor activities, such as how long they could play in the park before they had to go home.) “How reliable do you think this method of telling time might be?” (Lead students to conclude that this method has very low reliability or accuracy.)
“What about the other items I took out of the box? How do you suppose a pencil and a paper plate could tell you the time?” Poke a hole in the middle of the plate and push the pencil partway through. Tell students that this represents one way that the sun can tell us the time. If a sunny outdoor area is available, take students outside and turn the plate so that the pencil casts a shadow on it. Explain that sundials have been used to tell time for more than 3,500 years. In the same way a sundial works, the pencil will cast a shadow at different angles and different lengths throughout the day. By marking where the shadow should be at certain hours of the day, you can read whether the time is before, after, or exactly a specific hour. Similarly, when you stand outside at noon, you do not have much of a shadow, but early in the morning or late in the day your shadow is longer than your height.
“Sundials are more accurate than watching water evaporate, but what is the most reliable way that you know for telling what time it is at this particular minute?” (Using a clock or a watch is the best way to tell time.) “When you read a digital clock, the numbers show you the time. You also need the ability to read a clock that has hands so you can tell time no matter what kind of clock you see.”
“Let’s review what you already know about telling time on an analog clock, that is, the type of clock that has a face and hands. What do the numbers mean? What do the hands tell you?” Allow students time to discuss what they know about telling time to the hour, half hour, and quarter hour. Some students may already understand how to count by fives and ones to identify minutes after the hour or before the hour, but limit that discussion until after the lesson to keep from frustrating students who are not yet comfortable with those skills.
Use a demonstration clock to review the parts of an analog clock and the function of each hand. If a manipulative clock showing minutes is not available, use a real clock that has been unplugged or had the batteries removed. Write the words hour and minute on the board, reading them aloud afterward. “When you look at these words, which word is longer?” (minute) “That is an easy way to remember which clock hand is longer. The word minute is longer than the word hour, and the minute hand is longer than the hour hand.”
“When the minute hand points to 12, that means the time is zero minutes before or after an hour. When that happens, the time is called something o’clock. For example, if the hour hand is pointing to 4 and the minute hand is pointing to 12, it is 4 o’clock.” Although students are likely to know how to tell time to the hour already, observe whether any students appear to need additional help on this concept. Demonstrate several times to the hour for students to take turns identifying.
“When the minute hand does not point to 12, you can count the minutes after the hour by fives and by ones. Each of the small marks, shown on and between the numbers, stands for 1 minute. It takes 1 minute for the minute hand to move from one of these marks to the next. If you count every one of these, you will see that there are 60 marks, or minutes, in an hour, but there is a faster way to count the minutes. Start at the 12 and count by fives as I point to each number. Why do you think we can count by fives to quickly count the minutes on a clock?” (There are five minutes in between each hour mark or number.) Point to the 12, and then count aloud with students as you move your finger to 1, 2, 3, and so on: “5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60.” Now point at the 1 again. “If we keep going, is this 65?” (No, we have to start over at 5.) “Correct. We do not keep counting by fives after 60. Instead, we start again at 5. Why?” (Lead students to determine that there are only 60 minutes in an hour, so when a new hour is reached, we must start over again.)
“Now I will set the clock for 2:27. We will count by fives as far as we can, and then we will count the rest of the way by ones.” Set the demonstration clock to 2:27 and move your finger from 12 to 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 as you count with students, “5, 10, 15, 20, 25. Now let’s count by ones to the mark where the minute hand is pointing: 26, 27. It is 27 minutes after the hour. The hour hand is pointing a little past 2; it is almost halfway between 2 and 3, so it is 2:27.”
“It takes 1 hour, or 60 minutes, for the hour hand to move from the 2 to the 3. Half of 60 is 30, so if the time is 2:30, the hour hand is halfway between 2 and 3. If the time is past 2:30 (past half of the hour), the hour hand is closer to 3 than to 2.”
Pass out the Make a Clock activity (M-3-1-1_Make a Clock.docx). Have students cut out the pieces to make their own manipulative clocks to practice showing various times that you announce or write on the board. After students cut out the parts to make their clocks, provide paper plates or another type of thick paper or card stock for students to glue the clock faces to. Use a hole-puncher or other sharp utensil to make a hole in the middle of the clock face and at the widest ends of the clock hands. You might also give students hole reinforcements to protect the holes that have been punched. Then give students a metal brad to attach the hands to the clock face.
When the clocks have been completed, announce different times and have students demonstrate the given times on their clocks. Pair students who might need additional practice with others who can help them succeed in counting by fives and ones. After students become comfortable with these examples, write times on the board in digital format and have students match the times on their clocks. Finally, show various times on your demonstration clock and ask students to write the times on their own paper.
Discuss quarter hours with students; not necessarily in terms of fractions, but as benchmarks to count from. “Let’s take a look at the numbers 3, 6, and 9 on the clock. How many minutes past the hour is it if the minute hand is on the 3? What if it is on the 6? What if it is on the 9? We can also say how many minutes it is before the next hour when the minute hand is on the 9.”
Students will see that the 3, 6, and 9 divide the hour into 15 minute parts by counting by 5s. Encourage students to use numbers 15, 30, and 45 to shorten the process of finding the time after the hour. If the minute hand is on the third minute after the 4, it is 15 + 5 + 3 = 23 minutes past the hour. This will also be useful in estimating time.
Explore ways to find time before the hour and elapsed time with students. “You have been practicing how to count by fives and ones to find a number of minutes after an hour. We have also been counting by 15s to count faster. You can count in a similar way to find the number of minutes before an hour. Just count the other direction. I’ll show you how it works.” Set the demonstration clock to 1:44. Ask students how many minutes it will be until 2 o’clock. Students will see that it is 15 minutes until 2, plus one more minute. “It is 16 minutes before an hour. The hour hand is almost at 2, but not quite there yet. It is 16 minutes before two o’clock.” Continue with additional examples that are less than 30 minutes before the hour. Elicit from students that they can use the benchmark of 15 minutes before the hour (when the minute hand points at 9) to add to (if the minute hand is between 6 and 9), or subtract from (if the minute hand is between 9 and 12). Throughout this practice time, use a few examples after the hour to make sure students understand that they count clockwise to find minutes after an hour and counterclockwise to find minutes before an hour.
After students demonstrate an understanding of minutes before and after an hour, tell them that they can use the same skills to find out the number of minutes between two times: elapsed time. Set the demonstration clock to show a time to 5 minutes, such as 3:15. “How many minutes is it from 3:15 to 3:30? Start at 3:15 and count by fives.” Point to the 3 and move your finger to 4, 5, and 6, counting aloud: “5, 10, 15. There are 15 minutes from 3:15 to 3:30.” Continue with additional examples, each time starting and ending with a time that has students counting by fives. Include a few examples that cross the 12, such as finding the number of minutes between 1:45 and 2:15, but limit all elapsed time examples to 1 hour or less.
Pass out the Same Time activity (M-3-1-1_Same Time.docx). Give students opportunities to write and draw clocks that show the time in two different ways. You may want to provide each student with more than one copy of the Same Time activity or make laminated cards from the master for students to use, wipe clean, and reuse. Say aloud a specific time and have students write the digital representation and draw hands on the analog representation to match. Vary the examples to include time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, multiples of 5 minutes, and minutes, such as the following: 4:07, 12:45, 6:00, 7:23, 10:50, and 1:30.
Once students become comfortable with telling time, consider extending the lesson concepts by adding the designations of a.m. and p.m. to the clock times they write. Explain: “ ‘a.m.’ refers to the time after midnight and before noon, while ‘p.m.’ refers to the time after noon and before midnight.” Have students think about something they do during the day or night, draw a picture of that activity, and label what time it happens, including the a.m. or p.m. designation. To alter the activity, have students work in pairs. Instruct students to draw a picture of an activity, write a time when the activity occurs, and then trade drawings to mark the activities as a.m. or p.m. Students can check one another’s work.
Extension:
Use the activities and strategies listed below to tailor the lesson to meet the needs of your students during the year.
- Routine: At various times throughout each school day, pause to ask students to identify what time it is on an analog clock, the number of minutes before the next class or break, and the number of minutes it is before or after the hour. Tell students that any time you say, “Clock Time,” they should look at the clock, write the time on a piece of paper, and cover it with their hands until you come by to check.
- Independent Review: Place several books about telling time, everyday uses of time and schedules, and elapsed time in a reading center. Encourage students to read the books independently and match the given times with a manipulative analog clock, such as the paper clocks they made in a previous activity. Students who need to review the basic concept of time to the hour may benefit from the online site, Telling Time, http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/snapdragon/yesflash/time-1.htm. Students who are on target or ready for a challenge might enjoy the time and calendar skills presented humorously in the book Telling Time by Jules Older (Charlesbridge, 2000). See the Related Resources list for book and online suggestions.
- Practice in Pairs: Make a set of ten or more index cards to show various times in digital format, such as 1:40, 5:44, 12:00, and 8:18. On the backs of the cards, draw a picture of an analog clock face showing the correct hand placement for the digital time given. Also make a set of ten or more cards to show various numbers from 1 to 30. Have one student in the pair select a time card and show that time on his/her paper clock. The partner then checks for accuracy using the back of the card. Students take turns until all of the cards have been used.
Vary the activity by adding a set of cards to show multiples of 5 from 5 to 30. Limit the time cards to those showing intervals of 5 minutes. Have partners take turns drawing a time card and demonstrating that time, or drawing a number card and demonstrating what time it will be that many minutes later.
- Expansion: Make the pair practice more challenging by adding an a.m./p.m. designation to the cards. Then, in addition to the partner correctly showing the analog time, s/he must also verbally give an example of something that might be typically done at the time of day written on the card ( i.e., “I would normally have breakfast at that time;” “I would be going to bed at that time,” etc.).
