Monday, April 29, 2013

Telling Time With Cubes

I'm teaching time in a new and adventurous way this year.  This particular lesson all started with cubes.  I would have never thought cubes could lead to a better understanding of time, but stick with me and you'll see that it makes complete sense.  Each child had their own train of five.


After counting every child's set of 5 cubes, I traded them for a paper copy of five cubes which we then taped to a poster.  We labeled the number of cubes on the top and the number of trains on the bottom.  (I would have gladly used my whiteboard for simplicity sake, but my Smart board was totally in the way.)



Once we noticed several things about this interesting number line, we removed all the cubes past the 12th train and formed them into a circle like you see below.


Well, what do you know?  Looks an awful lot like a clock, eh? Of course, there was much discussion going on throughout this lesson.  I left out lots of information.  I just wanted to give you a gist of how it went and wet your appetite.  If you're interested in reading about the complete lesson, check out this post where you can find a link to an article that explains it in full.  It's good stuff!

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14 comments:

  1. It is a great way to get kids to unitize! (The ability to think about minutes as individual ones and groups of 5 at the same time!)

    Very cool lesson

    Tara
    The Math Maniac

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    1. Tara, you know your math vocab! I've heard the word unitize, but I couldn't have defined it. Thanks for reminding me. :)

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  2. I have never thought of teaching clocks this way! What I want to see now is how you teach MONEY! That was the hardest for me to teach. :)
    Lori
    Conversations in Literacy

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    1. Lori, it's new for me too. Money....hmm, that's a different story. :)

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    2. TouchMoney all the way. Quick, easy, and the Touchpoints are quickly abandoned as the counting skills are mastered.

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  3. Tammy-You are amazing! Have you won Teacher of the Year yet? WONDERFUL!

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    1. Teacher and Life Long Learner, that's an amazingly sweet thing to say. Thank you.

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  4. That's very cool. I vaguely remember doing something like this years ago. Thanks for sharing, Tammy.

    Barbara
    Grade ONEderful
    Ruby Slippers Blog Designs

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    1. Barb, you're way ahead of me. This is a first for me. :)

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  5. What a great idea! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely be doing this next year when I introduce time.

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    1. Jennifer and Priscilla, I'm glad to hear this will come in handy for you!

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