Today we did some practice with telling time. Yesterday our Mental Math Monday (or Tuesday since there was no school on Monday 😉)focus was time. I read a time and the students wrote the time down on paper. For example: when I said half past 10. They would write 10:30. Quarter after 6 would be 6:15. Quarter to 8 would be 7:45. 20 to 4 would be 3:40. 5 to 12 would be 11:55, etc. Then we switched to the 24 hour clock. I would say 13:00 and the would write 1:00 p.m., etc. Overall, we found that about 1/3 of the class felt confident with the task and were pleased with their score /30. This means that we wanted to do some practice and boost those feelings of confidence and understanding of the other 2/3 of the class. Students who needed extra practice partnered up with students who felt like they could support their peers. Students who felt okay-ish partnered with others who felt okay-ish. Afterward we did a sharing circle about the process and found…students enjoyed being learning leaders, students enjoyed learning from other their peers, students liked hearing ideas of how to practice telling time and either choosing one of those or developing their own activity, students realized that they knew more than they thought they did!

Time to learn!

Check in with your kids to see how they feel about telling time. Students are welcome to borrow some mini clocks to use at home for a few days to practice. You could also make flashcards, say a time and have them draw a clock or write the time to match what you’ve said, practice the 24 hour clock (which comes in so handy for travelling!), give a time and ask how many minutes until the next hour. Don’t forget to practice times like 3:37 or 10:18 when reading time, drawing clocks and telling you how many minutes to the next hour (which is like a compatible number to 60) can be a little trickier. I realize that most places have digital clocks, but learning to read an analog clock is a skill that everyone should know.

We will do another round of time for MentalMathMonday (January 30).

Time to go (lol)

Danielle