1. Make time important! When you tell students reading time is over in five minutes, make sure it is five minutes. Kids need to have an "internal clock" and that's impossible to construct without experiencing the true passage of time. Also, don't round time up or down when working on the concept of time. If it will be time to go home in 14 minutes, don't say ten minutes. Using a timer helps students gain internal time understanding. There are many on the Internet that are terrific, such as: Online Stopwatch Use time throughout the day, "We will go outside to recess in 7 minutes". With time, students start to internalize time. By the way, be sure to change up how you say time, such as a quarter till, fifteen minutes till and even 45 minutes after.
2. To build elapsed time knowledge, students must think about elapsed time in their own life. Before going to an activity, give the class an elapsed time problem about what will happen, such as, "We must be at gym class at 10:05. It takes 12 minutes to walk to the gym. At what time do we need to be walking out the door?" Think through the problem with the class. Doing an activity like this every day builds skills needed to do elapsed time problems.
3. Consider using a timeline to teach elapsed time. Why? When students use addition and subtraction to figure out an elapsed time problem, it doesn't always work. All you have to do it cross that 60 minute mark and things get dicy. I found a terrific number line lesson and resources from NCTM at: Elapsed Time Timeline It includes the timelines, activity sheets and more. The site also walks teachers step by step on how to teach the use of a number line for elapsed time problems.
As always, practice makes perfect! Try these great sites at centers, small groups or anytime your class needs a fun review of this important skill!
This is a great game, in two versions...desktop and touchscreen!
This game from SoftSchools.com is perfect for practice.
Mr Nussbaum.com site here..I don't know who this guy is, but he has great games!
This is an interesting one! Teachers choose the type of elapsed time practice they want, plus choose to have it timed or not. Click, then you get a link. Click it and your students have just the practice you have chosen! It goes from easy to hard.
This is a fun video to show as you begin your unit on elapsed time. This one is especially good for third graders! It's from PBS
If you need resources for that elapsed time unit check out the resources below by clicking on the cover:
