Mr Wolf? Sorry - years of teaching swimming lessons to small children has rendered me unable to complete the question "What Time is it?" without adding "Mr. Wolf" to the end.
Ahem.
Saturday night was the end of Daylight Savings time for this year, meaning that the vast majority of the population in North America (minus Rider Pride country) switched their clocks back one hour. I used to look forward to this weekend with glee. A whole extra hour of sleep? Fantastic! Oh how things change once you have a baby...my teething 15 month old had other plans for the evening and proceeded to make sure that night ranked right up there in the top 10 worst sleeps I've ever had. Thanks, little buddy!
In my sleep deprived state, I neglected to note that the clock in my bedroom (which I'd already turned back one hour prior to going to bed) possessed some sort of psychic super powers and KNEW that it was the end of Daylight Savings Time, thus turning itself back one hour further. Let's just say it was a very confusing morning around our household.
With all of this talk about time and clocks over the past 48 hours, I thought now would be a prime time to feature some time telling activities for those of you teaching younger children (or older children that have become accustomed to digital clocks, haha).
I've said it before, and I'll say it again - why reinvent the wheel? The SMART Exchange has plenty of ideas and activities created by fellow educators available FREE for you to download. Remember that the file doesn't need to perfectly match your needs to be useful - all of the files are customizable, so you can tweak the components as needed.
First up - a classic SMART Notebook file containing some practice activities. What I like most about this, is the teacher obviously intended it to be used independently by a small group of children, as the answers to most of the questions are hidden off screen (pull the arrow tabs in to see the right answer). Perfect for reinforcing a concept learned in class, and even more perfect if used in your classroom as a learning center.
Check out "Clock Time"
For those of you teaching elementary students whom are lucky enough to have a SMART Table in the classroom, there are quite a few SMART Table Activity packs available on the Exchange. One of my favourites is called 5 Minutes on a Clock, and you can download it here.
Have a great week!
Vanessa
