How to Tell Time with Clock Anchor Charts

When it comes to teaching students how to tell time, it can be difficult to know where to start. Use fun clock anchor charts to make telling time to the hour and half hour easier for students to understand. With these anchor charts, students will be able to understand:

  • the parts of an analog and digital clock

  • how to tell time to the hour and half hour

how to tell time with clock anchor charts

Telling Time Activity

To introduce clocks and telling time, ask students where they have seen clocks and what the clock was being used for.

A fun activity that can motivate students to begin paying attention to time is by using an alarm to track daily activities.

Set the alarm to go off every hour. Students use an analog clock to tell the time and write the activity that they are currently working on.

This activity not only exposes students to writing time to the hour, but also helps them recognize activities that happen at different parts of the day.

Types of Clocks

Students can make observations to compare digital and analog clocks.

Comparing digital and analog clocks

Digital Clock

A digital clock shows the time with numbers in hours and minutes. The numbers on a digital clock increase as the time passes. Some digital clocks have an alarm or radio.

analog clock tips

Analog Clock

An analog clock shows the time using an hour hand and a minute hand. The hands move around the clock to show the hours and minutes passed.

Use the tips to help students distinguish between the hour hand and minute hands.

Telling Time to the Hour

When students are confident distinguishing the hour and minute hands, they can begin telling time to the hour.

  1. Find the hour hand. What number is it pointing to?

  2. Find the minute hand. What number is it pointing to?

  3. What time is it? How do you write the time?

Telling Time to the Minute

In order to tell time by the minute, students should be familiar with counting by 5s.

  1. Find the hour hand. What number is it just passed?

  2. Find the minute hand. Count by 5s to find the minutes.

  3. What time is it? How do you write the time?

Wrap-Up

Your students will love learning and developing their time telling skills with these hands-on activities.

  • keep track of the activities that you’re working on each hour of the day.

  • display anchor charts to remind students the steps to tell time to the hour and minute.

Want to try this later? Save these Telling Time Tips to your favorite Pinterest board.

how to tell time anchor charts

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