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Intro: |
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| Choose a clock with large, easy-to-read numbers and hang it in a prominent location. If you don't have a clock you can hold up (or at least reach with a pointer), you can draw a large diagram on a chalkboard or a big piece of paper. Draw a clock divided into 12 hours and hand out copies of it. Show kids how to shade in each hour with a different crayon or colored pencil. Have them start with the hour between 12:00 and 1:00 and work clockwise from there. This shows kids that each hour is one-twelfth of the distance around a clock, and helps them remember which way the hands move. The abbreviations a.m. and p.m. stand for ante meridiem and post meridiem, but you won't need to tell kids this unless they ask. If they ask what o'clock means, it's short for "of the clock." |
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Until they learn to read a clock, most kids only have a vague understanding of what time is. Anything that doesn't happen instantly seems to take either a long time or a very long time. An analog clock gives them a visual way to interpret time and understand how they spend it every day. The hands. Start by showing them that the hour hand is the thickest, shortest hand on the clock, the minute hand is longer and not as thick, and the second hand is the skinniest and moves very quickly around the clock's face. Avoid referring to the "big hand" and the "little hand," since kids often find these terms confusing.
The numbers. Point out each number starting with 12 and moving in order clockwise. Ask the kids to read these numbers aloud with you for a second and third time. (They may be puzzled that 1, a number much smaller than 12, is not the first number on the clock, but repetition will help them remember the right order.) Now point out that the clock's hands always move in this same direction. Next, using several pictures of clocks that are either missing some of the numbers or not labeled at all, have the kids fill in the missing digits. Demonstrate how to start numbering a blank clock by filling in the 12 and then working to the right as you circle around the clock.
What the clock measures. Explain that it takes 12 hours (half a day) for the hour hand to travel around the clock's face, and when the hour hand has traveled all the way around the clock twice, a whole day has passed. Tell them the first half is a.m. (morning) and the second half is p.m. (afternoon and evening). To reinforce this concept, you can read through all the numbers on the clock again (yes, again!), this time twice in a row.
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Explain the clock's face
