When the minute hand passes 30 minutes and approaches a full hour, the hour hand gets closer to the next hour. This can be problematic for students. Many see the hour hand close to the next hour and think that is the hour. This post presents an approach to address this with students.
At vs Almost 10:00
Here is an entry point for telling time in the 2nd half hour, when the hour hand appears to closer to the next hour. The clocks below contrast what 10 and a time getting closer to 10. This allows a focus on the minute hand. We can contrast the minute hand showing 10:00 vs getting close to 10:00. This is the first chunk in a sequence of mini-lessons.
The Judy clock is dynamic and allows us to move the minute hand closer and closer to the next hour, 10:00. We can have the student “see” time getting closer to the next hour but not being the next hour yet.
Practice with Time in 2nd Half Hour
Math-aids.com website provides choices for the times situations you want to create for a handout. In the image below, the clocks all have time in the 2nd half hour (with 5 minute increments). This can be used as follow up practice to the instruction shown above. Have the student do the following:
- Identify what hour it is almost, e.g., “almost 10:00”
- Identify the actual hour, e.g., “it is still 9:00.”
- Count out the minutes in isolation.
- Chain minutes and hours for time.
