Quarter To, Quarter of, Half Past [Time Sort]

When my son’s first grade teacher sent a note home to parents telling us what we could work on with our sons and daughters, I didn’t ignore it. One of the things she suggested was a little extra practice identifying when times were “quarter to,” “quarter past,” and “half past.”

To work on this with my son, I created some clocks of these times. (Print the 2-page PDF I made here.)

I cut them out and labeled three pieces of paper “quarter to,” “quarter past,” and “half past.” It was up to my son to look at the clock cards and sort them into the right piles.

He whipped through the stack in no time. To check his work, I had him read back the times in each pile.

OOPS! He had several “quarter to” and “quarter past” times confused!

Having him read them aloud was a good reminder, too, that the “quarter to” times were one hour ahead of where the little hand was pointing.

This was a simple activity that really helped my son improve his time-telling abilities.