Guest Post - Telling Time

 


There are lots of fun teaching clocks available from Activity Village if your kids are learning to tell the time. Shelly explores some of them in this guest blog post...

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Telling Time

By Shelly

We seem to be in one of our telling time phases and the kids have been using some of the teaching clocks from the website. Activity Village have a lovely range of fun teaching clocks on the site like the sun clock, flower clock, bunny clock and teddy bear clock.  I love these colourful clocks – we currently have the sun clock up (we think it is helping to give us all this good sunshine too).

Sun teaching clock from Activity Village
Our sun teaching clock on display!

And as stunning and colourful as these clocks are, we have also been using the more standard teaching clocks – the ones with a white face and colourful border.  

Blue teaching clock
Blue teaching clock

My youngest already knows basic time like o’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to, but we wanted to start working on the 5 minute intervals (suggestion - this ties in nicely if the kids have been doing skip counting in 5’s).  He chose a blue clock and I added some flaps to it for him. Really very simply, I just cut some small rectangular pieces out of card and stuck them on the back of the clock. I positioned them so that each small card is extending out from the numbers of the clock face and then I wrote the minutes in 5 minute intervals for him. So at 1 I wrote 05, at 2 I wrote 10, at 3 I wrote 15 etc. all the way around.  Once completed the clock looked like this:

The teaching clock with tags for the 5 minute intervals added
The teaching clock with tags for the 5 minute intervals added

You could just leave the clock with the tags sticking out, or, if the kids like flaps, you could fold the flaps back and then as the kids turn the clock hands they can unfold the correct flap to see what the minutes would be.

Teaching clock with folded tags
Teaching clock with folded tags

We actually used this clock with the flaps as he worked on writing out the answers for some of the telling time worksheets.

Using the teaching clock (with tags) while doing a worksheet
Using the teaching clock (with tags) while doing a worksheet

My oldest is fine with telling time digitally. She will say it is 1:50, not "ten to 2", so does not like using the word phrases. While her brother was working on his 5 minute intervals we decided to tackle the whole "past" vs "to" wording. She also wanted her own clock. So I initially made her this one:

Adjusted blue teaching clock
Adjusted blue teaching clock to show "to" and "past"

I split the face in half and wrote Past on the right hand side and To on the left hand side and then wrote the minutes out. But this time, once I got to 30 I started counting backwards so instead of writing 35 by the 7 I wrote 25. The idea being that she gets used to saying 25 minutes to the hour.

After using it for a bit we decided we could make it better. We repeated the same idea with splitting the face in half, but instead of writing out 00 I wrote o’clock and instead of writing 15 I wrote quarter etc. So now her clock looks like this:

Adjusted green teaching clock
Adjusted green teaching clock

She likes it. And says it is helping her.

Tip – all the clocks use split pins. But you need to make sure that the kids can move the clock hands fairly easily or they will end up tearing the hands. We found with a bit of trial and error that you need to make sure the holes through which the split pins go are not too small so it allows some movement and also, when you fold the back parts of the split pin back, don’t make it too tight.

Out and About with our Scavenger Hunts

This is a guest post from Shelly. Shelly is a home educating parent of two children aged 6 and 9. She blogs at ofamily learning together where she shares ideas on the different learning activities that they do including lots of hand-on Maths, arts and crafts and anything else that is part of their home educating lifestyle.

You can find more guest posts by Shelly, and a list of all our guest posts, here.

 

Guest Post - Telling Time
Wednesday, 11th July 2018

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