Rich tasks
- The face of a clock
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1. The face of a clock
- For the first question, encourage students to consider calendars and digital devices which display time, as well as clocks and watches. Some students might find it interesting to research historical ways of measuring time.
Encourage students to discuss the aspects of time that are and are not measured with each object, and how the purpose affects the design. For example, timers on devices that record television programmes require a 24-hour clock to differentiate between morning and evening. - For the second question, you could ask students which piece(s) were not necessary for reading the time. For example, since the hour hand is shown half way between the 1 and the 2 in this example, the two pieces with the minute hand only serve to confirm the time is 1:30, and the first piece adds no additional information.
- This activity could be extended to cutting up a variety of clock or watch faces and calendars. For example, calendars that start on different days, or clock faces with displays that have no digits.
Measuring time page 224
- Understand and use the appropriate units for measuring time.
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Teacher notes
- Time, and particularly the duration of events, is a difficult concept for children because it is an abstract rather than concrete measure. In addition, lengths of time are often misrepresented in children’s experience, for example, when someone says “wait a minute”, the time waited stretches to much longer than a minute. It is important that students build an awareness of the real quantity of time that each unit represents.
- The practical, ‘How long is time’, on page 224 of the student book can be used while waiting for students to come to the mat or as a quiet brain break activity.
- It is a good idea to look at the students, and back to the stop watch as the time passes, so students don’t gauge the minute by some aspect of your behaviour.
- It is helpful to have a wall clock in the classroom and to encourage students to use it as part of daily routines, for example when transitioning from one activity to another, or measuring the length of time taken to clean up.
- The classroom clock can also be turned into a classroom display, for example, adding a background counting in fives around the circumference and using arrows to mark the ½ and ¼ hours.
Calendars page 227
- Understand and use a calendar.
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Teacher notes
- At level 1 students should have learned how to sequence events within a day, and most will be able to name and order the days of the week. If students do not fluently recall the days of the week in order or are unable to track to find the intersection between rows and columns, they will find work with calendars particularly difficult. They might need some additional scaffolds, such as a list of the days in order in the front of their maths book or as a wall display.
- A large calendar in the classroom that students are encouraged to use as part of the daily routine will also be helpful. You could track the number of weeks that have passed each term, or the number of days until the end of term or a class trip or other important school event or community celebration. Students’ birthdays could be added to the calendar, or a record kept of the weather each morning. This data could later be used to form a graph.
Telling the time page 230
- Tell the time on an analogue clock by recognising when it is ¼ past, ½ past, ¼ to and o’clock times.
- Tell time on analogue and digital clocks as minutes past the hour for example, 35 minutes past 9 or 9:35.
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Teacher notes
- Analogue clocks display a large amount of complex and abstract information in a small space. It is no wonder that many students struggle with learning to read time.
- The suggested sequence for learning to tell the time adopted in this series, is to begin by telling time to the hour, and then the half and quarter hour using an analogue clock.
- Students then progress to reading time after the hour by counting minutes past the hour (including counting in fives). Since this is similar to the way digital clocks display time, students will be shown how to record time in this way.
When students are secure in their ability to read time by the minutes after the hour, students can refine their reading of analogue time, including saying the minutes to the hour.
