Between kindergarten and 2nd grade is a great time to start learning how to tell the time on an analog clock and luckily, there’s a whole host of resources available (both free and paid) that can help you on your journey.

While you could opt to teach the time during Math lessons, we opted to include it as part of our morning loop. As a result we spent 30 minutes, 3 times a week going over different time related activities.

My 2nd grader managed to pick this up after around six weeks, although moving into 3rd and 4th grade we still plan to recap certain activities to maintain that confidence.

Telling The Time Resources

Before you get started with any telling the time lesson plans you’ll want to ensure you have all the resources required. We’ve found the following work really well;

Telling Time

This video by Rock n’ Learn has won more than 200 awards and is currently available as a DVD or on-demand via Amazon Prime.

What we love is how it covers both analogue and digital clocks and while the content can seem somewhat obnoxious to adults (myself included) it certainly works for kids – all three of mine loved it!

Suitable for children as young as 3, this video is a proven method for learning how to tell the time quickly and easily.

Learning Resources Time Activity Set

While you can purchase the Learning Resources clock on it’s own, the additional couple of dollars for the set is in our opinion a worthwhile investment.

This kit is the perfect hands on activity set for learning how to tell the time. It includes three dice, two for hours and one for minutes, matching cards, a clock and flashcard which makes learning to tell the time fun and engaging.

Telling The Time Lesson Plans For Kindergarten, 1st Grade & 2nd Grade

Personally, we opted for shorter lessons over a longer period of time when it came to learning how to tell the time. Although I know many homeschooling parents who oped for longer lessons of around an hour and completed the lesson plan in two – four weeks instead of six to twelve weeks.

Ultimately, the time it takes to complete the lesson plan is going to depend on the child’s age and ability as well as how intense / long the lessons are.

We didn’t teach the time during math lessons and instead did it as part of our morning loop which is why we opted for shorter and fewer lessons albeit over a longer period of time – click on the image above for my complete homeschool planning guide.

We began with some Telling Time episodes, this video does a great job of covering the basics which is fantastic since I literally never know where to start when it comes to teaching my kids the time. It also allowed me to assist the other kids during this loop period – This is essential as I currently homeschool three kids all in different grades.

When using DVDs and video content I’ve found it’s incredibly important to check in regularly and see whether your kids are able to consume the information, and where they are on their learning journey.

We did this with a mixture of the printable resources (below) and the paid resources (above). We went over the to / past sheet, to ensure that my child understood the difference between past / time before filling in the blanks at the bottom of the page.

We really enjoyed the filling in the blank excersizes, especially as they worked for both digital and analog clocks.

We then worked on time matching (you could just as easily do this before filling in the blanks exercises as I feel as though they are of a similar level). Both the free printable below and the resources kit above have time matching activities, and honestly, the more the merrier in this case as this is one activity that really seemed to lay the foundations to more advanced time telling.

We broke up our hands-on learning with some additional DVD / video time and finished our lesson plan with the game included in the Learning Resources Time Activity Set.

Depending on your progress you can keep this game simple and just use the two hour dices, alternatively you can try with the hour dice and the minutes dice (which is in 15 minute incriments).

Going into this I knew that my first grader wouldn’t get everything, however, we’ve certainly got a solid foundation moving into second grade.

In second grade we’ll likely repeat the lesson plan above, albeit with some additional activities with the aim of being able to confidently get the minutes hand times correct.

Free Printable Clock & Time Worksheets

Enter your email below and be instantly emailed your PDF document containing 9 pages of activities. Simply print these pages off and use them for various activities (ideas above).

I laminate some of the worksheets to make them last longer. Once we’ve gone over the core curriculumn of telling the time I then pop them in the car so we can reference and refresh during journeys to dance classes, soccer practice or the grocery store.