Throughout my 19 years in education, working with time is one of those things that students of all ages struggle with. Specifically, telling time on an analog clock and working on problems with elapsed time are the biggest struggles.

Before we dive into how I like to help teachers with these topics, let’s take a look at what we are asked to teach.

While I have schools that use a variety of sets of standards, the more common vertical alignment of the math standards dealing with time looks like this.

• First Grade: Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.
• Second Grade: Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.
• Third Grade: Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the problem on a number line diagram.
• Fourth Grade: Know relative sizes of measurement units within one system of units including km, m, cm; kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single system of measurement, express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Record measurement equivalents in a two-column table. For example, know that 1 ft is 12 times as long as 1 in. Express the length of a 4 ft snake as 48 in. Generate a conversion table for feet and inches listing the number pairs (1, 12), (2, 24), (3, 36), ..
• Fourth Grade: Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale.

Let me put that into some basic words: (using analog and digital clocks for all grade levels)

• First Grade: Tell and write time in hours and half-hours
• Second Grade: Tell and write time to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.
• Third Grade: Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. (word problems with elapsed time using a number line to help with measurement conversions)
• Fourth Grade: Know measurement conversions for time (use charts and/or number lines)
• Fourth Grade: Solve word problems using measurement conversions with time (elapsed time)

As teachers we have so many things on our plates to do on top of the actual act of teaching and need to prioritize things. I get it! Working with time is one of those things that we as humans use every single day. When I was in the classroom dealing with the measurement standards was not something I wanted to leave until the end of the year and try to touch on briefly and move on from.

A lot of textbooks out there put the measurement standards in at the end of the pacing guide in each grade level. Guess what that means? Every year in math, our students are getting the measurement standards 12 months apart. No wonder it feels like our mathematicians have no background knowledge when it comes to telling time!

My fix for that is getting our students familiar with the idea of a clock and telling time from the very start of the school year as we add a minute everyday of the school year with our Daily Number Sense Routine. If you want more information on that, please reach out. I love what a lot of my teachers are doing with using the day of the school year to help us introduce and work with the clock.

If you know me professionally, you know that I love MATH WORK STATIONS!! I wrote this little blog post for a friend’s webpage back in 2020, check it out. I created these two activities that are able to be differentiated with the mathematicians in your class.

I also LOVE using a friendly number bond and number lines to help students understand the WHY BEHIND THE HOW of elapsed time.

Racing Time – Differentiated Boards

• Racing Time is a game that students will play using a game board and changing their time by adding or subtracting the time stated on the game board. The game boards are differentiated so that students are only working with half hour increments, 15-minute increments, and 5-minute increments. Some boards only have students moving forward with adding time, some have students working back with subtracting time, and some boards are a mix of later and earlier. Pick what your
• students need. There is a recording page as well as clocks you can make to have students move the hands of their analog clocks to show the time.

Matching Time

• Matching Time is a game that has 3 levels to it. Each level has students working with analog clocks, digital clocks, and word forms of time. The different levels work through matching the time on the various cards to the nearest half-hour, quarter-hour, or the nearest minute.

I also love using picture books in math class. Here are some great ones to use as read-a-louds and/or books to have on hand for students to grab and read around the topic of telling time. (Click the books below for Amazon affiliate links.)

Let me know what you think and how telling time is working for you in your class.