First Grade Math Practice – Telling Time to the Hour and Half Hour

 

Welcome to the first post in the Breaking Down the Standards Series – Telling Time Hour and Half Hour. In this post we are focusing on telling time to the hour and half hour. When your first graders are learning to tell time, knowing the standards will be helpful to effectively plan and teach your students.

To see the First Grade Telling Time Standards for the Common Core and the TEKS, click the image above.

Vertical Alignment is so important when planning your lessons. You need to know what your students should already know and what they should know when their first grade years is over. Vertical alignment looks at the Kindergarten Standards as well as the Second Grade Standards. It sets you and your students up for SUCCESS! Click the image above to see the Vertical Alignment.

3. The Breakdown: Time to the Hour and Half Hour

The standard for the TEKS and Common Core are the same, with a slight difference in syntax. First grade students should leave first grade with the ability to tell time to the hour and half hour on a digital and analog clock. The CC mentions “Write Time,” but I’m thinking that is implied in the TEKS. They probably should have added it. What else do you think is implied? What about understanding the parts of a clock and how a clock works?     

You don’t just TELL TIME… there are a few other things you need to know first.  

Students also must know:  

• clockwise

• parts of the clock

• skip counting by 5’s to 60

For this reason, I recommend the following progression: 

• Digital clocks – Hour first and then Half Hour (discuss what the first and second numbers represent – Hours / Minutes)
• Parts of a Clock (posters provided, keep reading)
• Skip counting from 5 to 60 (Point to an analog clock as you count and tell the students you are moving in a clockwise motion)
• Read an analog clock – Hour (show side by side with digital clock)
• Reading an analog clock – Half Hour (show side by side with digital clock)
• Mixed Practice (show side by side with digital / analog clocks)

4. The Teach: Let’s start at the beginning – Telling Time Hour and Half Hour

Digital Clocks – Teaching kids to read a digital clock is the first step. Since digital clocks do not have hands, this is a pretty easy objective. You can use display cards to show the hour and half hour times on digital clocks. Grab these by clicking on the image. 

 

This set of cards can be used as part of your mini lesson when introducing the digital clock. Be sure to cut the cards apart and separate the hour cards from the half hour cards, and the digital from the analog cards. The cards can later be moved to a learning center for kids to match the digital time with the analog time. I would separate them into all hour and all half hour at first, then put them together at the end of the unit for continued practice.

Next up, Parts of an Analog Clock: Clock Vocabulary

You’ll want to familiarize your students with the parts of a clock and how the clock works before you begin teaching them to tell time. Here are some free vocabulary cards to use. 

 

• Hour hand – also called the short hand

• Minute Hand – also called the long hand

• The Numbers – 12 Hour Cycle

• The Numbers – 5 Minute Increments

• Face – Has hands but no eyes, nose or mouth!  🙂

• Tick Marks – Not all clocks have this, but they are definitely needed for beginners

• The Clock – The entire clock for display purposes

The RIGHT Clock Manipulatives

To teach the parts of a clock, your students should have their own manipulative clock in their hands. Make the relationship between the numbers on the digital clock and the hands on the analog clock.

The student clock manipulative should have:

• gears that properly move all of the hands at once. If your school doesn’t provide these, you can purchase them on Amazon. Here’s a link to some I found – Student Clocks  If you can’t obtain either of these, you can usually find analog clocks at the dollar stores or junk stores. By turning the knob on the back, you can get both hands to move at the same time. These clocks sometimes have a second hand which is good for teaching kids about how long a minute is.  

• tick marks – they are especially useful when teaching kids to tell time to the minute.

• minute hand and hour hand that are different colors (example: red minute hand, blue hour hand)

 

Using a larger version of the student clock, introduce each of the parts. As you discuss the parts of the clock, have students point to the part on their clock.

 

Mini lesson: Draw a clock. Create an anchor chart by drawing a similar clock.

Using chart paper and bold markers, draw a clock for your students. Discuss each part as you draw. Click here to see the progression.  

 

Once you’ve discussed each clock part in detail, have the students assist you in labeling the anchor chart. Explain that a clock works on a 12 hour cycle. It’s ok to mention day and night as well as AM and PM when you explain this. Some kids will get this with little explanation.

Now it’s their turn:  Using the attached practice pages, allow students to fill in the clocks (below are pages for both hour and half hour) 

 

Telling time to the hour: Here is where you will explain that there are 60 minutes in an hour. With your large clock, show how the hands move simultaneously. When the minute hands makes a full rotation, the hour hand moves to the next number. With their own clocks, they can show you 8:00.

Informal Assessing: Call out several more (ex. 3:00, 7:00, 2:00) and have them show these times on their clocks. As they show you the times, you’ll take a mental note of who need further assistance for small group instruction. You’ll do this again when teaching telling time to the half hour.

Adding Half Hour: Once the majority of your students have mastered setting their clocks to the hour times, begin this lesson. Start by counting to 60 by fives. Model this by pointing to the large clock as you count. Tell your students that the clock moves in a clockwise motion. Do this several times as a whole group.  Have them pay special attention to the hour hand. They need to understand that when the clock shows any time to the half hour, the hour hand is halfway between two numbers because 30 minutes is half of an hour.  

Informal Assessing: Set your clock to one of the half hour times. Have students write the time on a mini dry erase board and hold it up for you to see. Take notice of students who get the answer wrong,  are uncomfortable holding up their board or are trying to copy other students. They will need to be given more help in small group or at home.

5. The Practice: Telling Time Hour and Half Hour

After you’ve taught your students to tell time to the hour and half hour, it’s time for them to practice, and practice some more. This is how they will achieve mastery.  You can start here with these “Draw the Hands” practice pages. Do this with the whole group while projecting, if possible. These pages have blank clocks that students will fill in for all of the hour and half hour times. This is great practice for drawing the hour and half hour hand correctly.  These pages are not intended to be done independently. These should be copied double sided. You’ll also find many other useful pages in this resource. 

6. The Small Group Instruction:

Here are some ideas for your small group:

• Repeat mini lesson for struggling students. Draw a clock and discuss the parts.  

• Teach the students to draw a clock on a blank sheet of paper just like you did for the mini lesson. Help them label it.

• Cut and Paste Clock Flower with Petals for counting by 5’s.  You can also do this with with your entire class. This product has a clock with 5 minute interval petals to be glued onto the clock. This is great for skip counting practice.

• Have students show you times on their mini clocks. You can use the digital clocks for this. Release students as they master the skill and continue working with others.

• Show a time on your large clock and have them write the time on their dry erase board.

 

Other FUN ways to practice:

7. The Learning Centers:  Telling Time Hour and Half Hour

Kids love using Boom Cards to practice skills. They are interactive, self-checking and paperless and have become a go-to for many teachers for distance learning. They’re also so easy to assign! Read my blog post here. Check out these fun and engaging Telling Time Boom Cards that will help your students to become Time Wizards!

Boom Cards Hour and Half Hour

Boom Cards Hour and Half Hour Uncover the Picture

My friend, Cynthia created these fun digital task cards! 

Use the Digital and Analog Clocks mentioned above. Have the students match the hour digital clocks with the hour analog clock, then do the same for the half hour clock. Then mix them all together!

Online Games by Splashlearn

• Analog Clock
• Time to the Hour
• Time to the Half Hour

8. The Fun – Telling Time Hour and Half Hour

How about some Telling Time Riddles? Kids love riddles!  

 

“Time Check!”

Time Check is a fun way to practice throughout the day! Have the students attach this small sheet of paper on their desk and throughout the day, call out “TIME CHECK!”  at which point they will write down the time on the analog clock in your classroom – kids get so excited for this activity! Grab this fun activity here!

Now Available!  Post 2:  Breaking Down the Standards – First Grade Fractions

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it to be informative. Don’t forget to save the image below to your Teaching Resources Pinterest board for future use.

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Thank you for stopping by!
~ Carrie