Elapsed Time

Amy,
I teach fourth and don't have any magic plans but I can tell you the few things I've learned about elapsed time at this grade level. I've taught elapsed time in fourth 4x.

First elapsed time is difficult. The very best thing that made a difference for me was to have a clock with gears available to every kid. These clocks are very expensive ($4+) but they really do help tremendously. Hopefully, your mentor/cooperating teacher has them available to you. Practice with the students several times including counting by 5s around the clock. If you can use the clocks all you need to do is ask the question, have them act it out, then hold them up for you to see and confirm they did it right.

Act it out is a problem solving strategy so you can even use a bus/plane schedule, movie schedule, etc problem that they need to solve. Then you can see how they do with problem solving. Do you know the steps of problem solving? They're understand, plan, solve and then check.

I use tips I found this year on this board for the check step. They're on this fourth grade board in probably the November time frame. It's simply a listing step where they start at the "start time" and count on until they reach the "finish time" when they just count the hours and minutes of elapsed time.

Again a caution--if your lesson plan is simply a written plan you'll be great. But if you need to be observed in the classroom you need to expect that some kids won't get the concept. Good luck.

Hi there! Isn't that funny, I'm teaching elapsed time to my fourth graders, too! Just an idea, how about taking the television guide section (in grid format) out of the newspaper and making a copy for each student. (You might even make an overhead transparency for you to use), then generate some quesitons using the grid. As a final activity, have the students create some questions using that or another grid. Be sure to have them complete the answers. Good Luck! (A funny thing, last year I told my class that we would just "touch on" elapsed time, and we did. Wouldn't you know it, on the NY State test there was a dreadfully hard question about elapsed time! Who knew?)

Unfortunately, with elapsed time on our upcoming state tests, I can't wait to teach it either. Here's what I do
Make sure you have a "teacher clock" that you can move hands on for demo purposes. If you don't have demo clocks for your students (which I don't) either borrow from a colleague, have them make one or run off copies of pages with blank clocks. Getting this difficult concept as concrete as possible is the key.
What I do is just start out with the basics. It is 2:15 on the clock (show this)...what time will it be x# of minutes from now? Practice tons of these, counting on by 5s and ones. Then do just hours...It is 5:00. What time will it be 6 hours from now? Then you can start to combine them and get a bit trickier.
This can lead into "The movie started at 6:25 and ended at 9:15. How long was the movie?"
One way I get my kids into this is I use examples involving them. I try to make them as goofy as possible but it gets them thinking.
Finally, I encourage my kids to draw clocks to help them. They really do better with the clock or counting on their fingers.
Good luck!

I just finished this with my class. I agree that it is quite dreadful!

I made a poster that says Finding Elapsed Time. Then I listed these three easy steps:

1. find the start time
2. add the hours
3. add the minutes

Each time we complete an elapsed time problem, I read the above steps like a little chant. The kids quickly pick it up and it will make finding the elapsed time much easier!

Good Luck!
Joy

Here are some activities that I do with my students for elapsed time:
1) We start by having them put their heads down, eyes closed. Then after 30 seconds, I"ll have them sit up and tell me how long they thought that was.
2) Then I ask them if they think a minute is very long. So they put their heads down again and when they think one minute is up, they just put their hand in the air.
3) When doing activities, I always make it a point to tell them that we need to be done at such and such time, how long do they have to work on it.
4) Writing their schedule for part of the day and discussing how much time is spent doing certain activities is helpful too.
Hopefully something here can be of use! Have fun!

three rules ::

1) check the minutes. if they are same, the result will have 00 minutes. the hours would be the difference of hours. eg. 6.00 to 7.00 7.45 to 8.45
if (1) is not true
2) check further the hours. if they are same, the result will have 0 hours . the minutes would be difference of minutes eg. 6.00 to 6.45 (45-00) 6.15 to 6.55 (55-15)
if neither (1) nor (2) is true
3)twin checks check if the hours are next to each other and the minutes in the ending time is 00. If yes,
elapsed time is 60 - the figure in the minutes column of starting time et. 6.35 to 7.00 (60-35 min)
If all the above rules answer in negative, then the long method of splitting eg. 4.45 to 8.35
4.45 to 5.00 (rule 3)
5.00 to 8.00 (rule 1)
8.00 to 8.35 (rule 2)

We just did this this past week in fifth grade. I told my kids that they had to count on with the hours first, then count on with the minutes. I also used a clock to help them visualize the amount of elapsed time in the problems. If you don't have clocks in your classroom, you could make them out of paper plates, then design hands to go on with a brad. A lot of practice with real story situations that they can relate to helps.

We practice telling time throughout the day, every day, by actually using the classroom clock. Periodically I ask "What time is it?" Everyone looks at the clock and tells me the time. At the beginning of the year only a few kids can do it but with ongoing practice more and more students are able to tell time. At first we practice time to 5-minute increments ("About what time is it?"), but now we're telling time to the minute.

I practice elapsed time with my students in the same way. If, for example, they tell me the time is 9:55, I may ask "How long have we been writing?" and then "How much longer until recess?" I also ask, "If we have 20 more minutes for math, what time will it be when we stop?"

Similarly I ask questions using our classroom calendar--"How many days until...?", etc. I also have my students make a calendar as a Christmas gift--actually write the months, days, and numbers on blank calendar pages.

I'm teaching time and calendar right now. A few things that I've tried...for students who are having time with hour/minute hands I make my own worksheets. I use two different colored markers. I draw all of the hour hands with one color and the min. hands with the other. Then, below the clock I draw __ : __ The first __I use the same color as the hour hand and the second __ is the same color as the second hand.

Also, kids had trouble reading the hour hand when it gets close to the next hour. We talk about how it's not our birthday until the day of - even though it's very close. And it's still our birthday until the next day. So we'll say, is it the three's birthday or the four's? That seems to help.

Those same kids really struggle with elapsed time so if someone has an idea for that I'd also love some ideas.

I created a simple tv guide that consisted of childen's favorite tv shows. I listed times and the names of the shows. The children had to read the "tv guide" and answer questions.

Examples of questions:

1. If it is 5:25, How long do you have to wait to watch Scooby-Doo?
(The children would have to find out what time Scooby-Doo began and then figure out how much time they would have to wait.

2. How much time would you have to make popcorn if it was 7:31 and you wanted to watch The Simpsons?

The children had a great time with this activity and it was very meaningful for them.

Tessa, what we did was make a t chart and then write 3:30 on one side and 6:10 on the other. Then we explained that you can "Jump" hours just as you jump dollars from 1 - 10... So under 3:30, we wrote 4:30 and on the other side 1 hour, then 5:30 and on the other side 1 hour, and then saw that until 6:30 would be too much. There we began to count by 5s or 10s writing the time - 5:35, 5:40... until we reached 6:10. (At 5:60 we switched it to 6:00) On the other side, opposite the times we wrote 5, 10, 15 and at the end added it all up. Do it as you read this and post back if you understand what I am talking about. It is really hard to explain in words only!

Hi! I learned a strategy for teaching elapsed time at a workshop about three years ago that is awesome. Now that I teach this difficult skill using the techniques this teacher shared my third graders have ALWAYS been able to find elpased time. I'm going to do my best to explain it, but it's really one of those things you need to see. If you can't make any sense out of my words, maybe I could scan an example and send it to you via e-mail. Here goes:

1. Jamie put a pizza in the oven at 1:25. It cooked for 30 minutes. What time was it when the pizza was ready to eat?

The student draws a t-chart. At the top on the left side write the start time-1:25. On the top at the other side write min. Now, in between the two draw an arrow pointing up to show that we are counting up. Next, make several horizontal lines going down the t-chart. Under "min." write 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. On the other side, under 1:25, count up the time until it is on the same line as "30." The left side should say 1:30, 1:35, 1:40, 1:45, 1:50, 1:55. The answer is 1:55 and I have the kids circle it.

This will work with virtually any kind of elapsed time problem.

2. Kyle's soccer practice started at 4:10 and lasted until 4:40. How long did soccer practice last?

The student draws a t-chart. At the top on the left side write the start time-4:10. On the top at the other side write min. Now, in between the two draw an arrow pointing up to show that we are counting up. Next, make several horizontal lines going down the t-chart. Under the start time count up at five minute intervals until it shows 4:40. Under min. count up by fives until you are on the same line as 4:40 and there you have how much time has passed! (30 min.)

3. Tamia went to the mall at 2:20 and shopped for one hour and 10 minutes. What time was it when Tamia left the mall?

This time you will complete two t-charts, one for the hours and the other for minutes. Do the hour chart first. The student draws a t-chart. On top of the left side write 2:20. On the top of the right side write hours. Don't forget the arrow pointing up! Now make several horizontal lines and label the first underneath hours with 1. Now move 2:20 to 3:20. The next thing to do is create the minutes t-chart and use 3:20 as the start time.

I promise that if you can figure out what I'm trying to explain this will work for your students. My students always love it! One thing they have to learn to look for is whether the problem requires them to find the minutes elapsed or to find a new time. That's how they know which side of the t-chart to work first. They will eventually get to the point where they don't even need the t-charts. If your time has minutes that aren't at intervals of five you can still do it. For example, if the time is 2:12 just add five to that to get 2:17. If you are subtracting time the arrow should point down. You have to teach this step-by-step but they will quickly catch on.

Please let me know if you have anyquestions. Thanks!
Betsy

Elapsed time is SO hard for my students. I don't have any tips for teaching it, other than stress the fact that you can count by fives forward or backward to get the first time number. I start my kids out with REALLY easy ones like 15 minutes of elapsed time and things like that and then we work our way up.

Attached is an activity my kids liked because they got to schedule what they wanted. There are several attachments, so I have to make several postings for all of them. It's also done by levels.

Birthday Party is the easiest
Practice/Sports is the on level one
and Disney is the advanced

here's another one

Here are the directions for the Disney Elapsed Time Activity

yet another

and last one

and another

I have overhead clocks and I place two or three on the overhead at one time. It helps them visually. We count the minutes together. Other than practice and more practice, I don't have anything useful. It's universally a hard concept; so take comfort in that thought! :s)