How To Teach Time To Grade 2

Have you ever asked the following questions…

• How do I start teaching time?

• What is the easiest way to teach time?

• How do you explain the concept of time to a child?

• How can I teach my child the time?

If so, don’t worry – you’re not alone! Teaching the concept of time is a tricky topic.

Today we’re going to be discussing how to teach time to grade 2. I’m going to share a fun and FREE craft that your second grade students will love.

How do you teach time to second graders?

The common core standards look something like this –

Work with time and money.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.C.7
Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.

This means that we actually need to be asking ourselves how to teach time to 5 minute intervals.

Yep, students in second grade need to know how to read an analog clock in more complex ways than just hour and half hour times. They need to be able to read times like ’10 minutes past 3′ or ’20 minutes to 5′.

But how do we do this? How do you explain time to grade 2 when it’s starting to get intricate?

The learning needs to be visual, hands-on, and relevant to the real world. Sometimes, a worksheet just doesn’t cut it. Students need to be able to see time in action, manipulate a clock, and move the hands.

This is where my free craft clock comes in!

Fun Ways To Teach Time – HOW TO TEACH TIME TO GRADE 2

There are a lot of telling time activities for second grade out there. But here’s the thing…they’re not interactive or engaging.

This craft though? It’s definitely a lot of fun. Let’s see how it’s made.

How to make the free clock craft

No prep? Check!

First up, you simply print a single page. Yep, this telling time activities pdf is NO PREP (print and go)! Your teaching time lesson plans don’t have to be hard work to prep. Teachers are time poor, am I right (no pun intended!)?

1.) The students color in the cute fish pictures using crayons or colored pencils.

Fine motor? Check!

2.) Next, students simply cut out the fish, clock, and arrows. This is great fine motor practice. Once they’ve cut out the pieces, they need to make small cuts along the dotted lines on the clock (to create flaps).

No mess? Check!

The beauty of this art activity is that is not messy. No glitter and no paint, I promise! After all, who wants mess everywhere during a Math lesson? Not me. All students need is colored pencils/crayons, scissors, and glue.

3.) After your students have cut everything out, they glue the clock on top of the fish, by placing glue onto the center of the clock.

Tip – You might want to remind students not to add glue onto the flaps. You also want to remind them to line up the 12 with the 00.

Interactive? Check!

What I love about this clock craft is that it’s interactive. Having the moving flaps and clock hands makes this engaging for students to play with! This craft would look super cute as a Math bulletin board.

4.) Students need to poke a hole through the clock hands and craft. Using a split pin paper fastener allows the hands to move.

However, if you don’t have paper fasteners, you can have your students just glue their clock hands down. The craft will still have interactive flaps to demonstrate the concept of time to the nearest 5 minutes.

Voila! The craft is complete.

How to teach time to grade 2 – Teaching time lesson idea

Once your students have made their clock crafts, you can use them to demonstrate times in 5 minute intervals.

This craft is great for whole group activities. You can ask the students to make a time on their clocks. For example, ‘show me 20 minutes past 7!’

Or you can ask students to move the hands to certain spots and then ask what time it is.

If you don’t use the paper fasteners (and your students glue the clock hands), there are still things you can do. You could show the class a clock and move the minute hand around. You could ask them how many minutes have passed. Students can check under their flaps to see the answer.

You could turn these ideas into small group or pair work too. Students could ask each other questions and test each other.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post about how to teach time to grade 2! You can grab this clock craft in my free resource library – click here to access it.

Good luck teaching time to your second grade students!

P.S If you’re looking for an assessment for teaching time, check out my worksheets for quarter past and quarter to times here.