Telling Time by the Hour (Simple Printable Game)

One of the most important aspects of telling time is understanding which hand tells you the hour, and which tells you the minutes. To help my son practice telling time by the hour, and beginning to memorize which hand does just that, I made him this fun and simple game.

What You Need
My 2-page PDF (download it for free from Google Drive here)
Heavyweight card stock
Scissors
Unconventional hole punch (optional)
Brad
12 game pieces for each player (we used the flattened glass marbles)

Prep
Print one handless clock game board for each player. Print the clock spinner on heavyweight card stock. Fold over the paper at the bottom to double the thickness of the spinner. Glue the folded paper down and cut the spinner and clock out. 

Either poke a hole with a nail through the center of the clock and spinner (or use an unconventional hole punch). Thread the brad through the hour hand and clock, separating the prongs at the back of the clock.

Play
The youngest player starts first and flicks the hour hand on the spinner. Wherever it lands, they must read the clock and tell the time. Then they will take one of their game pieces and put it over that number on their clock game board (e.g. if a player flicks the hour hand and it points to seven, they say "It's seven o'clock" and put the game piece over the seven on their game board clock). 

The next player does the same. If you already have a number covered that you spin, your turn is over. The next player uses the spinner.

The first player to get all the numbers (aka o'clocks) covered on their game board is the winner.

Read
We read three books with this activity.

Race Around the Clock Game

My almost nine year old son is great at time telling, probably better than I am at 38 years old. But I knew he'd have fun with this game.

It's simple and great practice telling time, counting, adding minutes, moving the hour and minute hands practice, etc.

What you Need

A clock for each player with movable hands 

A deck of playing cards (My son chose Star Wars Villain playing cards.)

Don't have a clock? Don't worry! Print mine free from Google Drive here and use a brad to attach the hands.

Objective

Beat your opponent around the clock first.

How to Play

Shuffle the cards and make sure each clock is set to 12:00.

Before you begin, decide if players will move the hands one hour or multiple hours. Playing the game to see who can move the hands from 12:00 to 4:00 first, enables players to move both the hour and minute hands more often, whereas moving the clock from 12:00 to 1:00 means they only move the hour hand once. You decide, based on attention span, as well as your child's attention span and proficiency.

The youngest player starts first and draws a card off the deck. The number on the card tells the player how many minutes to move their clock. Draw a 6, and the player moves their hand to 12:06, and announces their new time.

The next player does the same, drawing and moving the hands on their own clock.

If a player draws the following face cards, they earn the designated times.

Jack = 15 minutes

Queen = 20 minutes

King = 25 minutes

Ace = lose 30 minutes

Joker = lose a turn

If you've just started the game and a player draws an Ace (e.g. they have not moved past 12:30), they must move back to 12:00. Or if they have moved past 12:30, they must move back the full 30 minutes.

This game is incredibly simple and yet fun too. I hope you enjoy it as much as my son and I did!

How to Make a Water Clock

When I explained to my eight year old son that ancient peoples didn't have clocks like we do today, he was surprised. I don't think the thought had ever occurred to him that without batteries or electricity, the hands of a clock simply couldn't move.

In Ancient Greece, they used a water clock to time short events. It was called a clepsydra (KLEP-sye-druh). I thought it would be fun to make our own version of these ancient clocks.

What You Need

masking tape

fine-tip permanent marker

two of the same empty plastic beverage bottles

thumbtack

pitcher of water

timer (we used a stopwatch app on the iPad)

craft knife (to be used by an adult only)

funnel to make pouring easier

How to Make It

Remove the labels from the beverage bottles for clear viewing to the inside.

An adult should cut one of the tops off the bottle with a craft knife. Recycle the top; you won't need it. With the top cut off, the bottom of the other bottle should fit snuggly down into it. Label the bottles if you'd like (bottle A is the complete bottle and bottle B is the one you've cut).

Turn the complete bottle over (bottle A) and put a thumbtack through the center of the bottom of the bottle to make a small hole. (This is the hardest part of the whole project.)

Mark on this bottle where the full line is (figure this out by nesting bottle A inside the bottle B; the distance from the bottom of bottle B up to the bottom of bottle A or slightly below is where you should draw the line on bottle A). Note: We botched this up but it's important to know how full to fill your bottle each time. You'll want to be consistent.

Grab a length of masking tape and adhere it vertically to the side of the cut bottle (bottle B).

Now get your timer and the pitcher of water ready. Pour the water, using a funnel if desired, into the neck of bottle A (your bottles should be nested) and immediately start the timer. Pour up to the fill line on bottle A.

When one minute passes, make a small mark at the water line on the masking tape on bottle B. Continue to mark the minutes until the water has completely emptied from the top bottle into the bottom one. We only marked the first 10 minutes, but you can mark as many minutes as you'd like.

Now you can dump out the water and put the timer aside. Another pour of the pitcher and you can calculate how long something takes with just your water clock!

This great activity was adapted from instructions in the book Spend the Day in Ancient Greece.

Top 10 Favorite Math Activities of 2012

My son loves math ... almost as much as chicken nuggets. Here's a recap of some of our favorite math activities from this past year.

No.1    Fridge Football

My son and I have played this so much, he has all the answers to the subtraction problems memorized! This simple game is a great drill for subtraction problems and counting by twos! Instructions and a free printable game board and playing cards are here.

No. 2    Math Post-It Note Scavenger Hunt

Practicing math facts has never been so fun. Send kids around the house (or school) answering one math problem at a time. Solve the problems right and a prize is yours! Cheap, easy, and gets their brains and bodies moving! Instructions here.

No. 3    Driveway Dice Roll Game

Turn your driveway into a giant board game where the kids are the game pieces. With a tissue box cube turned die, kids will roll, add, and subtract their way to the finish. Instructions here.

No. 4    Geometry Jump

Print geometric shaped game pieces out on colored cardstock. Get kids "swimming," dancing, and hopping from one shape to a parallelogram, trapezoid, even number, or the answer to 12 plus 13 (for example). This game is perfect for kinesthetic learners and practices a ton of different math skills in one game. Free printables and instructions here.

No. 5    Miniature Multiplication Ring Toss

What can you do with a small square of styrofoam, some popsicle sticks and a few plastic drink rings? Practice multiplication, of course! This fun ring toss turns learning multiplication facts into a game! Instructions and a free multiplication table printable here.

No. 6    Post-It Page Marker Math

Match the math problems to the answer and add hair to child's head, fur to a lion's mane, and quills to a hedgehog using Post-It page markers! Free printables here. 

No. 7    DIY Balancing Scale

Kids can learn about measuring, weight, and balance with a hanger, some yarn, and a few plastic cups. Don't underestimate the enjoyment that can come from such a simple activity! Instructions here.

No. 8    Fraction Match Card Game

This simple game is a modified version of "Go Fish." Kids will have a blast matching up colored shapes, pies, and numeral representations of fractions to see who can match up all their cards first! Free printable game, instructions, and book recommendation here.

No. 9    Round Around (Rounding Single Digits Board Game)

Round up or round down, move forward and back around the game board until the first player to the finish wins. Don't be overly confident! Players close to the finish are often sent backwards by rounding down. That's what makes this game great for adults to play with kids; you never know who'll win! Get this great printable and instructions here.

No. 10    Scrambled Schedule

Uh oh! A schedule of the day's activities is a scrambled mess! Kids put it in order, acting out each of the activities before finding the next one. This active time-telling game will get kids doing somersaults, jumping jacks, and dancing. Free printable and directions here.

No Stone Left Unturned [a Time-Telling Game]

Flash cards work. The only problem is, my son hates them. Don’t most kids? 

I cooked up a little game to sneak in some flash card-like time-telling practice.

I printed 16 clocks. On the back of the paper, were stone shapes. I also printed cards with the times from the clocks – some written out and others as numbers.

Once cut out, I laid the clocks face up in a four by four grid on the table.

Then I turned over one card at a time. My son’s job was to find the same time on the clock and turn that stone over. 

If he’d found all the times, all the stones would be turned over at the end of the game, when the pile of cards had all been gone through.

My son was anxious to see how fast he could identify the right times. (Maybe next time we'll see how quickly he can identify all the times correctly.) He truly enjoyed the game and when a neighbor boy stopped by, even he joined in the fun.

To make your own time-telling stones, download a PDF here. Print the first four pages of stones onto heavyweight cardstock. Flip the paper over and print page five through eight. The remaining two pages are the cards.

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. 

Scrambled Schedule [Active Time-Telling Practice]

Sometimes one idea leads to another. In the process of trying to dream up a game that works on half-past, quarter-to, and quarter-after time telling, this little activity was born. It got my son out of his seat and gave him some extra practice drawing the hands on our Complete-A-Clock.

First, I made 12 cards with a variety of times from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Download them here (page 3 of the PDF contains 8 blank cards).

Under each time was a specific activity (e.g. do 5 jumping jacks, write your name, give a high-five, etc.). I printed the cards and scrambled them up.

I reminded my son what a schedule was. Like the routine he follows at school, it was a sequence of events that are completed at certain times. I told him that we needed to unscramble a schedule and complete the activities on it.

Then I gave my son a dry-erase marker and our laminated blank clock. I told him that the first time was 8:30 a.m. After he found that card, he drew a long and short hand on the clock to display it, and then did the activity on the card.

Now it was time to find what time and activity came next in the schedule.

My son needed a little help at first but caught on after the first three times and had a blast drawing the hands on the clock and doing each activity. See for yourself:

Telling Time Printable Card Game

Before my son’s last playdate with his best buddy, I must have answered “what time is it now, Mom?” and “how much time before he gets here?” a zillion times. (sigh) Finally, I reminded him that he could tell time, too. 

I had to jog his memory about which hand told the hour and minutes, but otherwise, he patiently counted by fives around the clock to tell the time in minutes.

To develop his time-telling skills even more, I made a time-telling card game based on Old Maid. I created 33 cards, 16 of which are analog and digital clocks with the same time and 1 dead battery card.

Download the game cards here.

After printing on cardstock and cutting them out, we were ready to play! ... Well, almost.

First, we read Telling Time by Jules Older, who did a MUCH better job of identifying digital and analog clocks and explaining each hands’ function on the analog clock than I did.

After we’d finished the book, I shuffled and dealt the entire deck to my son and I. (The cards won’t divide evenly; that’s okay.) When my son had all of his cards, I told him to lay them out so I could help him find the digital and analog clocks with the same times. I did the same thing with my hand and those matches were set aside.

Then we held our cards and picked one card from each other’s hand, alternating turns, matching the clocks and putting the pairs aside. The objective is not to get stuck with the dead battery card. The player left holding that card is the loser.

My son LOVED playing the “Time is Running Out” game I'd made and, with each game we play, seems to be getting better at reading the clocks.

Remove the dead battery card from the deck, and play these other fun children’s games:

Go Fish!

Memory

Complete-A-Clock Printable

My son can count by fives, so why is it such a struggle for him to figure out the minutes on an analog clock, I wondered. To help practice telling time and reinforce counting in increments of five around a clock, I created a printable inspired by a wall clock arrangement that Mrs. Lemons posted on her blog, Step Into Second Grade (Isn't that clever?!).

Download a PDF of the Complete-A-Clock template here.

I laminated the Complete-A-Clock printable so my son could write on it with dry-erase markers. (I have a feeling this will get some heavy use throughout the year.)

For our first exercise using the blank clocks, I had my son read Is It Time Yet? by Lesley Jane. (Any children’s book with clocks would work great, such as Jenne Abramowitz’s adaptation of Hickory Dickory Dock or The Clock Struck One by Trudy Harris.) Before I handed over Jane’s book, though, I used small post-it notes to cover the clocks on each of the pages.

As he read sentences like, “Kelly woke up at 8 o’clock …” I had him write the time in the blank digital clock and then draw in the hands on the analog clock above it. When he’d read the whole page and filled in both clocks, he could remove the sticky note in the book to see if he got the time right. He was so excited with every clock he drew right and only made one error doing the whole book (that’s progress, for sure!).

When he has advanced past telling time on the hour and minutes on the fives, I’ll add some marks between each of the numbers and start challenging him with times like 8:23 or 11:47. Hopefully with enough practice, he’ll be ready for this sooner, rather than later.

Only time will tell ...

Hickory Dickory Clock Book

To introduce the concept of telling time to my son, I decided to use the beloved children’s nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. I created three worksheets with a total of 12 handless clocks and each of the verses from the nursery rhyme on DLTK’s Growing Together website. Thanks to a little design finesse, I even made a cover page.

We started out the afternoon’s activity by reading Trudy Harris’ book “The Clock Struck One: A Time-Telling Tale.” In the book, I pointed out the clocks on several pages and explained that the long hand of the clock points to 12 and the short hand points to the hour.

When we were done reading, my son set about on the task of making his own book using the worksheets I’d created and cut apart. He drew the hands on the clock to match the time in each verse. (I wrote these out instead of using the numeral.) Then he put them in order. I stapled the pages together, he colored the cover, and voila! He had made his very own Hickory Dickory Dock book. Before he left the table, we read the book cover to cover.

Now, if I could just get that darn tune out of my head. (sigh)

If you want these worksheets and the cover page, download a four-page PDF here. I’m happy to share!