Time to the Hour
Background Information & Activities

Time is how we divide the day into units. Learning to tell time will help your child schedule his or her day and gain greater control of his or her surroundings. Although many clocks that your child will see are digital, learning to tell time from an analog clock is a necessary skill.

Telling time is often revisited every year in elementary-school classrooms, so what your children have learned will vary. For a quick and fun review, watch the “Parts of a Clock” movie with your children. This movie covers the basics of the clock—its parts, how the hands move, and how we use time to plan our day. You may wish to do some of the activities or assign the quizzes to ensure that your children have a firm grasp on the parts of a clock. Then they will be ready to tell time to the hour.

On a clock, the hour hand, or short little hand, points to the hours while the minute hand, or big long hand, points to the minutes. When we say the time, we tell the hours first, followed by the minutes. For example, when the hour hand is on the 10 and the minute hand is on the 12, we say the time is ten o’clock. The term “o’clock” means “of the clock” or “according to the clock.” This phrase is used only with times that are exactly on the hour. Ten o’clock can be written in two other ways: 10 o’clock and 10:00. When we write the time using only numbers, we use a colon to separate the hours from the minutes. Furthermore, we always write the minutes to two places (10:00, 10:01, 10:02, and so on).

Explain to your children that as time passes, the hands move. When the minute hand moves all the way around the clock, the hour hand moves from one number to the next. This is an hour. Prompt your children to observe that the minute hand moves faster than the hour hand. Since there are twenty-four hours in a day, but only twelve numbers on a clock, the hour hand must go around the entire clock twice. This is why we have a six o’clock in the morning and a six o’clock in the evening. Twelve o’clock during the day, when the sun is high in the sky, is commonly known as noon . Twelve o’clock when the moon is high in the sky is known as midnight because it is the middle of the night.

The hands on a clock only move in one direction—toward the right, or clockwise. The opposite direction is called counterclockwise. Though the hands never move that way, the term is important to learn.

The best way to learn how to tell time is to practice. Use a demonstration clock or any analog clock and present different times on the hour for your child to read. This will help them prepare to learn time to the quarter-hour, half-hour, and minute in the future.

Time to the Hour Teacher Activities – Click Here!

Time to the Hour Family Activities – Click Here!

Time to the Hour Teacher Activities

Buzz, Beep, Ding

Present an analog clock or a demonstration clock to your class. Have students name each part of the clock. Then explain that as the minute hand goes around the clock, the hour hand moves from one number to the next. Demonstrate how the hands move and then stop when the clock shows the top of an hour. Have your children buzz, beep, or ding just like an alarm clock and tell the time aloud.

To extend the activity, have student volunteers write the time on the board. They can write the time in three different ways: in words, words and numbers, or numbers. Students can then copy the times in their notebooks and also draw model clocks showing the time. They can use their notebooks as a reference throughout the Time Unit.

Time Charade

Have student volunteers mime activities they do during the day or evening. If possible, you can write specific activities on slips of paper and put them in a box or a hat. Activities can include waking up, going to bed, or eating lunch. Then have students name a specific time to the hour when they would do that activity. Make sure students tell whether the time is during the day or night. Have other students write the time on the board or draw analog clocks to show the time.

As an added twist, you can write a time to the hour on the board and have students mime an activity they would do during that time. Try writing a time where activities can be done during the day and in the evening. For example, if you choose 7:00, some students may mime waking up in the morning and other students may mime eating dinner or doing homework. Have other students decide which event is during the day and which is during the evening.

Time Bingo

Make a set of cards showing an assortment of times on clock faces. Make Bingo boards with times written in different ways (i,e. 4:00, 3 o’clock, or noon). You can make enough boards for the whole class, or just for small groups to use. Instead of “calling out” the times on the cards as they are drawn, the caller should just show the cards silently so that students need to read the time and translate it into written form on their own.

Time to the Hour Family Activities

On Schedule

Have your child keep an appointment book to schedule what he or she does at specific hours during the day. For example, your child may want to record the time he or she needs to wake up, when they will eat lunch, and what time they will return home from school. Then make an analog clock together by using paper plates, construction paper, crayons, and a brass brad to attach the hands. Set this clock to remind your child about a specific activity. For example, you or your child can set the clock to 7:00 as a reminder that this is the time to wake up. If possible, display different handmade clocks around the house and change them to suit you and your child’s needs.

Story Time

Together with your child, make up stories that use time and have your child write down each time, draw pictures of an analog clock to show the time, or move the hour and minute hands of an analog clock to show the time. For example, you can tell a story about a rooster that cock-a-doodle-doos at six o’clock in the morning and then at twelve o’clock in the afternoon and then again at seven o’clock in the evening. Your child can show the times and then make up stories of his or her own.

Daytime, Nighttime

Have your child write about activities that she or he does during the day. What time does your child go to school? What time does your child have recess? What time does your child have lunch? Then have your child take the times and think about what they do at the same time at night. For example, if your child goes to school at 8:00 in the morning, what does your child do at 8:00 at night? Have your child write a chart describing daytime and nighttime events. She or he can decorate the chart with illustrations.