Elementary teachers and students have to work by a schedule. How else will there be time for snack, play time, story time, math, and science activities during your day? It’s very helpful for students to learn about time, so here are a few suggestions to help you as you develop your lesson plans.
Students can understand some of the most basic elements of time before they every learn how to read a clock. Experts agree that even before your child learns to read the hands on a clock, he should have a basic understanding of time and how we measure it.
To begin, help your students learn about the basic concept of time. You can introduce them to the tools we use to measure the passing of time.
One way to help students understand the concept of days is to use a paper chain to mark the amount of time that has passed. Either add another link for every day that has passed, or take one away each time you begin a new day. This will give them a visual representation of the concept.
Show pictorial representations of common activities and then talk about whether they take one hour, one minute, or one second to finish.
Talk about time in terms of how long it takes to get some place. For instance, you could say that rest time will last about as long as it takes us to have recess.
Talk about the times you do things each day. At 11:30 we have lunch. At 2:00 we play. At 2:30 our parents come to pick us up.
See if your students can finish a task in a certain amount of time. When playtime is almost over see if the kids can put away all their toys in five minutes.
Watches and clocks can be fun for kids as they learn about telling time. Setting alarms or using timepieces that mark each hour can instill in your students a sense of how much time is passing.
You can also point to the clock at certain times. As you line up for recess you might point to the clock and say it’s 1:00 and allow the students to look at the clock. While they will not be able to read the clock immediately, you will continue to impress upon them how the two things time and the clock are related to each other.
Many teachers want their students to be able to count by fives before they begin trying to teach students to read a manual clock. Starting off, it is a good idea to stick to hour and half-hour readings. Once the children get the hang of that, you can move on.
If you would like story ideas for reading to your children about time, you might like Eric Carle’s The Grouchy Ladybug Eric Carle and Pat Hutchin’s story Clocks and More Clocks. Your students will be reading in no time!