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It's About Time:
Teaching Students to Tell Time

Telling time is a skill often relegated to when-the-teacher-finds-time status. But it is a skill as real-life and essential as addition and subtraction -- especially in the age of digital clocks. This week Education World offers five fun lessons focused on teaching kids how to tell time. Included: Links to 20 more lessons for teaching about time.

How many times during the day do you use the word time?

What time is it?
It's time to pack up.
You're wasting time.
It's time for music.
Be sure to hand in your work on time.
We're out of time for today.
It's lunchtime.
If I have to tell you one more time…

Then there are all those famous quotes about time…

A stitch in time saves nine. (Proverb)
Time heals all wounds. (Geoffrey Chaucer)
Better late than never. (Lu Hsun)
Take time for all things. Great haste makes waste. (Benjamin Franklin)
Time and tide wait for no man. (William Bradford)
Here today, gone tomorrow. (John Calvin)
Time flies. (Proverb)
To every thing there is a season; and a time to every purpose under heaven. (The Bible)

You probably could come up with a dozen more timely expressions and many more quotes as well. Time is a pervasive presence in our lives -- and it makes a great teaching theme!

This week, Education World provides five lessons to teach students to tell time. Click each of the five lesson headlines below for a complete teaching resource. (Appropriate grade levels for each lesson appear in parentheses.)

Teaching Students to Tell Time: Resources for Busy Teachers
Three activity sheets help teachers develop and reinforce students' clock/telling-time skills. (Grades PreK-5)

Telling Time BINGO
BINGO is used to reinforce students' skill at telling time. BINGO card included. (Grades K-8)

Got the Time? (Math Word Problems)
Math word problems put students clock and clock-reading skills to practical use. (Grades 3-8)

Just a Minute!
Help students put the standard measure of clock time -- the minute -- in perspective. (Grades K-12)

Telling Time Timeline
Use Internet and library resources to compose a telling time timeline -- a visual history of time. (Grades 3-12)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Industrious Clock
Students will be mesmerized by this unique clock.

Daylight Saving Time
The history and rationale behind DST, more.

Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World®
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