How to teach telling the time, step by step
Most children learn to tell time in the same order: first o’clock, then half past, then quarter past and quarter to, then every five minutes, and finally any minute. Each level here matches one of those steps, so a sheet never asks for more than your class has learned.
Two kinds of practice
Read the clock
Children look at where the hands point and write the time. This builds reading the hour hand first, then the minute hand.
Draw the hands
Children see a time such as 7:30 and draw both hands. It is harder than reading, because they have to remember that the hour hand sits between the numbers once the minutes pass the hour.
In the MATATAG curriculum
- KinderNaming the days of the week and the months of the year.
- Grade 1Reading and writing time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour on an analogue clock, and using a calendar.
- Grade 2Time in hours and minutes with a.m. and p.m., and elapsed time, including timetables.
- Grade 512-hour and 24-hour time.
The o’clock, half past and quarter levels match Grade 1, and the five-minute and any-minute levels match Grade 2. The clocks do not show a.m. or p.m., so add those orally when you check answers.
At home many Filipino children hear the time in Spanish-derived words: alas-tres for three o’clock and alas-tres y medya for half past three. Linking those to the clock face helps children who know the spoken time but not the English one.
Summarised in our own words from DepEd’s MATATAG Kindergarten Curriculum Guide and Mathematics Curriculum Guide, Grades 1–10 (2023).
