Telling Time with NO Worksheets!

This week our big skill was telling time to 5 minutes!

What fun!

We started by talking about all the reasons that telling time is an important skill.  They came up with some great ideas and some funny stories!

Here is my favorites:
"My mommy is always late and it makes her have a war with daddy!"
"So we don't miss Sponge Bob!"  quickly interrupted by a friend, "Or miss school!"

To get us started with telling time we talked about all of the parts of the clock and we became the HUMAN CLOCK!  This is one of my favorite lessons each year.  Such a favorite that my Teaching BBF and her class joined us for the fun.

You put the kids in a big circle and have 12 kids be the numbers on the clock.  Two students are the hands.  You practice positioning the the kids at different spots and have the extra kids, the ones standing on chairs, try to tell the time.  It is a lot of fun and the kids catch on instantly!

Here is a little picture to make it easier to understand.  I hated to "blob" out the kids faces because their expressions are the best part of this activity.  Lots of little fingers skip counting from number to number.....  teacher happiness!

Once we got the hang of it we and practiced, practiced, practiced!

This lesson takes a tiny bit of prep on the front end.  Just running and laminating the signs and hands.

This activity has leveled writing prompts to use at the end of the lesson.  I have some kiddos that wanted to know about time to the minute, so I explained it to them and they totally got it!  SCORE ONE FOR ME!

The other thing I do to help us learn telling time is a simple game.  Set your phone alarm clock or download a ringer app to go off randomly during the day.  Whenever it goes off the first hand in the air gets to tell the time.  If they are right, FANTASTIC and they clip up.  If they are wrong, I try someone else.  The kids LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!  This game is a great quick break during the day and after it is over they get refocused real fast.  I highly recommend trying it!  Your kiddos will be time telling like pros within a few weeks!

Teaching is hard work and every now and then we must treat ourselves!  Here is my BIG happy that I treated myself to this weekend.  Yes, it is hidden in the back of my car....  He won't ever look.... RIGHT?

Is there anything better????   I'm in heaven!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Teaching!