Learning to tell the time can be very challenging for children to grasp. There is so much information needed to be able to tell the time on an analogue clock and this can cognitively overload children. At St.Alban’s, we break this into tiny steps.
First, children only focus on the hour hand in a linear number line. Children practised using their hour hands to show o’clock times on the number line. We then also looked at where the hour hand would point for half past the hour, noticing that it no longer pointed at the number but was halfway between two numbers.
Then we moved our numbers into a circle like a real clock face with the hour hand in the middle pointing to the o’clock and half past times.
After, we started to think about the minute hand as well. We used two clock faces for this: one to show the hour and one to show the minutes. We noticed that the minute hand points halfway around the clock face to represent half past.
We discussed how people don’t wear two watches but have to look at the hour hand and the minute hand on the same clock! Finally we tried to show o’clock and halfpast times on one clock face by moving both the hour and minute hands. We will repeat these steps with quarter past and quarter to times tomorrow. Well done year 2, you will be telling the time in no time!
