Learning & Loving It: Telling Time
Learning & Loving It is a series featuring simple, yet fun educational activities for home learning and virtual, interactive tutoring.
Telling time with your own clock
This clock activity is a great one for teaching children how to tell time. Use it to talk about time in the future or to discuss how long it takes for something to happen with older children.
Supplies:
Paper plate, construction paper, brad, (optional thumbtack), ruler, scissors, marker, pencil
Constructing your clock
- 1. Mark your paper plate in quarters (use a ruler for accuracy) by adding a dot in the center, top, bottom and each side.
2. Write you 12 on the top dot that you made, then proceed by adding the 3 to the right side, 6 at the bottom, and 9 on the left
3. Fill in the remaining numbers numbers in between your 3, 6, 9, 12.
4. Mark four minute hand marks in between each number.
5. Using the construction paper and a pencil, trace two hands for your clock. One should be shorter (hour hand), and one should be longer (minute hand).
6. Use your scissors to cut out each hand from the construction paper.
7. Stick your brad through each clock hand as well as through the center of the plate, then fasten.
Clock activities
- 1. Set the clock, and have students tell you what time it shows.
2. Ask the student to show you a specific time such as 2:30.
3. Try asking the student to show you a specific time in increments of five minutes to single minutes.
3. Ask a specific time using phrases like “quarter past”, “half past”, “quarter to” or “on the hour”.
4. Discuss different times of certain events or routines and have the student show you. Examples of this would be bed time, breakfast, lunchtime, etc.
Older children
- Have older students add or subtract time. Example: “It’s 3:00 p.m. In forty-five minutes, what time will it be?”
“If you’re at your house at 4:00 p.m., you need to be somewhere at 4:30 p.m., and it takes five minutes to get there, what time would you need to leave?”
Check to see the video demonstration.
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