Progress in Math, Telling Time

Samuel started the school year being able to tell time on the hour and half hour. We have been working on telling time to the 5 minute markings around the hour on a clock face. I have tried a couple different things. I had this terribly marked up clock face with circles drawn around the hour numbers and then I wrote in the 5 minute times outside of the circle (I used a clock face slightly larger on the page than the ones I pictured here). It was a bit messy looking. I have also used a talking "teaching" time clock. That was good, but it was distracting because any time it talked it had to say an introduction that was programmed into it, kind of distracting.

I had the best success when I recently started using three clock face worksheets during each lesson (these worksheets are from the Enchanted Learning website). I begin with a time on the hour or half-hour, which he is already familiar with, easy.

Then on the next page he has to tell time within a few minutes of that. Each day we progress five more minutes. I only write the minute numbers around what we are working with, I'm no longer filling in the whole hour anymore. That was just too messy on the worksheet.

On the third worksheet I give Samuel the time and then he has to draw the correct time with the hands. After several weeks of prompting, he has recently been able to do these three worksheets each day without any verbal or hand-over-hand prompting from me. Now it's just the written prompting of the green minute numbers filled in.

I'd love to hear what you have tried with your child or student to teach them time!

This is the third worksheet we use during a lesson, on which I give him the time and he has to draw it with the hands.