13 Activities to Teach Telling Time

Teaching children how to tell time can be a fun and engaging process. By incorporating different activities into your lessons, you can help them grasp this essential skill more effectively. Here are 13 activities to make learning to tell time enjoyable for your students:

  1. Clock Face Craft: Begin by guiding students in creating their clock faces. Provide them with a paper plate, plastic numbers, and two hands (hour and minute). They can decorate their clocks creatively.
  2. Matching Game: Create sets of cards with analog and digital times. Have students match the cards together by pairing the correct analog clock with its corresponding digital time.
  3. Time Hopscotch: Draw a large hopscotch grid on the ground with analog clock faces and digital times. Students have to hop on the correct time when you call out a digital or analog time.
  4. Time Puzzles: Create puzzles where students have to put the correct digital time together using jumbled pieces. This activity helps them reinforce their understanding of how to read digital times accurately.
  5. Time Bingo: Prepare bingo cards with different analog times. Call out digital times, and students mark the corresponding analog time on their cards. The first student to get a line or a full house wins.
  6. Time Race: Divide students into pairs or small groups. Provide them with cards showing different analog times. Students have to place the cards in the correct order from earliest to latest, racing against each other.
  7. Time Snack: Ask students to create a snack using edible items, arranging them to represent a specific time on an analog clock. For example, they can use pretzel sticks to show the hour hand and fruit slices for the minute hand.
  1. Time Stopwatch: Have students time various activities using a stopwatch. They can record and compare the duration of different activities, reinforcing their understanding of elapsed time.
  2. Time Excursion: Take students on a walking excursion around the school or neighborhood. Give them a list of digital times, and they have to spot objects or events happening at those specific times.
  3. Time Interviews: Have students interview family members or friends about their daily routines. They can then create schedules showing various digital times associated with those activities.
  4. Time Songs: Teach students songs that incorporate time-related vocabulary or concepts. Singing these songs together can make learning about telling time more memorable and enjoyable.
  5. Time Journal: Assign students the task of keeping a daily time journal. They should write about activities they did at specific times throughout the day, practicing writing both digital and analog times.
  6. Time Storytelling: Encourage students to create short stories that feature characters who experience time-related adventures. This activity will help them reinforce their understanding of time concepts in a creative way.

By implementing these 13 activities into your teaching, you can make learning to tell time an engaging and interactive experience for your students. Remember to adapt the activities based on the age and skill level of your students. Enjoy the journey of helping them master this important life skill!