Teaching article
Elapsed time across the hour: draw the interval
Represent the start, finish and intervals between them rather than subtracting clock digits blindly.
From 2:40 to 3:05, the minute display passes through the hour boundary. A timeline lets children show the interval in parts instead of subtracting the visible minute numbers without considering what they represent.
To hand: A labelled activity timeline.
- Mark the start time.
- Add convenient intervals.
- Check the finish time.
Bridge the hour explicitly
From 2:40 to 3:05 is twenty-five minutes: twenty to 3:00, then five more.
Show the time interval crossing the hour explicitly. Subtracting displayed minute numbers alone can obscure the elapsed duration.
Clock notation is not a base-ten decimal calculation. Which intervals make the total?
Use a drawn timeline with clear labels.
Resources
- Reflection Journal Template — Use the blank reflection space for observations; write the measurement units and setup separately.
Further reading
Read next
- Time a process without turning children into competitors
- Ask a graph a question its data can answer
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