Around the Clock

I just took on teaching math and got the joy of teaching time to my wonderful first graders! Some materials I found very useful were a big teacher clock with colored hands, and small individual clocks for each child. The standard states that students will be able to read time to the hour and half hour. I began by reading "What Time is It, Mr. Crocodile?" The kids really loved this book and they helped me guess what time would come next. As I read I wrote all the times shown on the clocks in the book up on the smart board. I continued the lesson by introducing different types of clocks, pointing out the hour and minute hand. We practiced learning these hands by writing the word minute and seeing it was longer than the word hour. I also said, "When I say minute hand you say long hand." "When I say long hand, you say minute hand." then, "When I say short hand you say hour hand." "When I say hour hand, you say short hand." The first day we just saw how the hands moved around the clock and learned how to read time as "o'clock" when the minute hand is pointing to the 12. After practicing reading several different hours, we did a closing called "ticket out the door." Students had to stand up one by one and tell me what time I was showing them on the clock. Each student had to read a different time before lining up for recess.