the terrific task of teaching kids how to tell time

Teaching kids how to tell time is no easy task. But this little analog clock, printed on cardstock–with labeled, movable hands–has made Maddy’s homework this week a whole lot more manageable. (And I’m betting just a little more fun!)

The minute- and hour-hand confusion, the skip counting by 5’s for the numbers on the clock, the craziness of figuring out the hour hand when it’s not really on the hour yet–it all makes for one difficult lesson for many kiddos. And at this point in time, in this digital age where even teaching penmanship is controversial since students do so much work on computers, I have to admit that it takes me a few minutes to think about telling time on an analog clock.

Here are a few resources I used–and hunted down–to get my sweet Maddy over the telling-time hump (or so I hope):

Teaching Kids How to Tell Time: There’s no magic here, I fear; it’s the ole basic principle of practice, practice, and more practice.

Maddy had several worksheets this week in her homework packet that focused on telling time. She seemed to breeze through the half-hour and hour-clocks from previous weeks, but this week she hit a wall when it came to figuring out the mixed-up hours and minutes.

I knew she needed something in her hands that she could move herself, or she’d be constantly erasing like crazy. Luckily, her amazing first-grade team of teachers provided her with this fab clock a few weeks back. I didn’t realize quite how awesome it was until this week, when the worksheets got a whole new world of tricky.

the clock, before it got its hands

I scanned the Analog Clock and page of numbers, I printed it on cardstock, and we used a gold fastener to secure the hands. I cut two small circles from a margarine lid and placed them on the back of the clock and also between the hands and the clock face; sometimes it helps with spinners and rotating pieces to have more space to move.

The Small Analog Clock with Movable Hands is here to download as a pdf if you’d like. I cannot give credit to anyone other than Maddy’s teachers and school. Many, many thanks yet again!

After the major road bumps Maddy hit the first time she attempted the clock worksheets this week, she seemed a little relieved to have an actual clock to practice on before she drew in the hands on her paper.

When Maddy could actually manipulate the hands, see the numbers better, and see the ‘hour hand’ and ‘minute hand’ written on the pieces, she became more comfortable.

I wrote the numbers by each quarter hour–15, 30, and 45–and that seemed to help her a bit, too.

And really, that’s it–it’s just a clock that helps my sweets with her big-time first grade homework.

And here are a few other time-telling resources I hunted down in a feeble attempt to support this (initially) troubling task:

Time for Time site:

Telling Time Lesson Plans: for teching hours, half hours, minutes, etc.
Telling Time Worksheets: Hours, Create-your-own time (like Maddy’s), analog-to-digital and vice versa, etc.
Class Clock: Kids can manipulate and change time on the screen
Telling Time Games!: Even a cute Just In Time board game (love it!)
A History of Time: Seriously. Sundials and the works.

Just in Time: