Telling Time Teaching Resources

Browse telling time worksheets, clock games and templates and more teacher-created resources to help your students learn how to read digital and analog clocks.

Aligned with both TEKS and Common Core math standards, this collection is stocked with everything you need to build lesson plans that engage your students and make it fun to learn all about how we tell time. Each resource has undergone careful review by a member of our teacher team to ensure it's ready for your classroom and your students!

New to teaching students how to tell time or just looking for some fresh ideas? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a look at whether or not kids should learn to read analog clocks and some of our teacher team's favorite activities and tips for teaching kids to tell what time it is.

What Is "Telling Time?" A Kid-Friendly Definition

Your students have likely heard people talk about time countless ... well ... times in their young lives. Still, it can be helpful to kick off your time-telling unit with an explanation of what it actually means to tell time.

Here's one from our teacher team that's just for kids:

Telling time is understanding what the clock is showing us so that we know what time it is.

Teaching Time With Analog Clocks vs. Digital Clocks — Which Is Better?

Maybe you have an analog clock in your classroom ... then again, your students may have never even seen an analog clock! So, do you really need to teach students how to read one?

The answer is yes!

Kids should certainly learn how to tell digital time. But even as cellphone clocks and digital watches have become ubiquitous, knowing how to read an "old-fashioned" analog clock remains an important skill and a standard in most places — including states that make use of the Common Core Curriculum.

Benefits of Reading Analog Clocks

There are myriad benefits to this, and not just because it ensures kids will be able to tell time if they're in a situation where the only clock available sports hour and minute hands.

1. Counting by 5s — as you do when reading an analog clock — is a skill that will help students when they begin to learn multiplication.
2. Analog clocks reinforce the concept of a difference between two numbers.
3. Traditional clocks help our students grapple with the concept of elapsed time as they provide a visual representation.

5 Parts of an Analog Clock to Teach Your Students

Teaching students how to read a clock typically begins by teaching kids about the different parts of a clock — from the face to the various hands. Here are the four main parts of an analog clock or watch:

1. Clock Face

The "face" of a clock is the area that is marked with numbers and sometimes marked with small lines to represent the minutes.

2. Numbers

Most clocks and watches are marked with numbers that represent the hours. The space between them is divided into minutes.

3. Hour Hand

Most clocks have at least two "hands" on the face. The hour hand is the shortest and thickest hand, and it points to the hour.

4. Minute Hand

The minute hand on most clocks or watches is the part that points to the minutes. It is longer than the hour hand, and it is thicker than the second hand.

5. Second Hand

Some — but not all — clocks and watches featured a thin third hand. Just as the name implies, the second hand is the hand that points to the seconds.

How to Teach Kids to Tell Time — Activity Ideas for Your Classroom

Looking for more tips on teaching kids to tell time? Our teacher team has stocked this collection with plenty of resources to help kids learn the difference between a minute and an hour, how to use a.m. and p.m. and more, but we didn't stop there!

Here are a few favorite activities and tips that you might want to try in your classroom!

1. Build telling time into your classroom routines. For example, you might say, "We have 20 minutes to do this. What time will it be when we're done?" or "We have to be at lunch at 11:40. Where will the hands of the clock be?"
2. Give your students plenty of practice with writing the time by making it part of your daily math warm-up.
3. When you provide times for upcoming events, don't just provide the literal time but also what it would look like on the clock. For example, "In 15 minutes, when the hour hand is on the 1 and the minute hand is on the 7, we will line up for recess.”
4. Hang two clocks in your classroom to make a two-step process out of learning to tell time. One clock can display the hour hand, while the other displays the minute hand!