Are Your Students Mixing Up the Hour When Telling Time? Try This

Yesterday, I modeled a lesson in a second grade classroom for students who were struggling with telling time to the nearest 5 minute intervals.  Students had the classic problem with telling time.  When the hour hand was close to the next hour students mistakenly wrote the hour an hour ahead.  For example, when students read the time 8:55, they would write 9:55 instead because the hour hand nearly touched the 9.  To alleviate this confusion I used and adapted the idea from the free Georgia Curriculum resources (page 57).  Unlike the clock instructions in the Georgia resources,  I used sentence strips which I cut up, and paper clips which I threaded through the holes.  I ran out of brads, so I used what was available.

To begin my lesson on time, I stretched out the clock on sentence strips in a linear fashion.  Then I held my hour hand clock arrow under the numbers and moved it along and asked students what hour it was.  I explained to students that until the arrow point was directly on  the next number AND in this case color, that the previous number still remained the hour.  Students proved to be more successful in telling time on an analog clock after this discussion.

Then after the discussion with the linear clock  using the hour hand, I had several student helpers  hold the clock in a circle so that they could see how the linear clock compared to the round clock on the wall.  I repeated my questioning holding the hour hand  in between the numbers and asking them what hour was being shown.