Telling Time Tools!
Today, I had the pleasure of reviewing the Watch It! Elapsed Time Clock from Educational Insights, and I can see so many uses for it! As a former third grade teacher, I know elapsed time is crazy hard for so many students. It is one of those skills you continue to work on over and over again, and you know there will still be some that just won't seem to grasp it until the end of the year (maybe) and you just HOPE that it clicks by the time spring testing season rolls around.
Well, this fun tool will be able to help you out with that very problem!
Basically, the Watch It! Elapsed Time Clock is super easy to work. Here are the steps involved:
1. Slide the red lever at the top to START and then move the blue minute hand on the left clock to the time desired (notice that there is an AM and a PM, so make sure you move it all the way around 12 hours if you want to change that to the opposite of where it is.
2. Then, you slide the red lever on the top to END and set the clock on the right for the ending time.
3. Students can then take that opportunity to figure out what the elapsed time is by moving the clock hands, adding it on paper, or doing it mentally. (I love that they can use the method that works best for them!)
4. Last, after they have an answer, the student can push the little stopwatch button on the top of where it says "Elapsed Time" and check their answer to see if they were correct!
I love that this can be a hands-on tool and not abstract like the clock on the wall. It doesn't even use batteries, so that is a bonus in itself! Plus, it can be used for all sorts of questions:
- Difference Between Two Times: "The birthday party started at 2 PM and ended at 5 PM. How long was the party?"
- Adding Time: It's 7:45 AM right now. It takes 15 minutes for Eric to walk to school. If Eric leaves now what time will he arrive at school?
- Subtracting Time: "The party ended at 3 PM It lasted 4 hours. What time did the party begin?"
All of those are wonderful ways to differentiate the elapsed time learning for your students. In fact, you could even just use the one clock and move the hands around and watch the time change at the bottom to see how to tell basic time if you need to start from the beginning. The different colored hands help with learning the minute and the hour hand.
Having such a fun resource where the students can physically move the item and see the change in time will help to understand how time works. Using this in a center would be a wonderful idea - as long as it is out in the open and visible. I can see some students "learning" a little too rough with this item, so my suggestion is to have it visible in case the rough-housing gets a little too rough in a center.
OK - would you be able to use the Watch It! Elapsed Time Clock in your classroom? Super awesome Educational Insights is giving one lucky reader here at The OCB their very own! Yay! Entry form is below. Have fun and good luck from Educational Insights and The Organized Classroom Blog!
