Time - Telling the Time to the Minute - Planning

In the Year 4 summer term, students embark on a journey of mastering the intricate skill of telling time to the minute. The lesson utilises a variety of resources such as small clocks, worksheets, and a presentation to support the learning process. The key vocabulary includes terms such as 'time', 'clock', 'minutes', 'nearest minute', 'hour', 'past', and 'to', which are essential for understanding the lesson's objectives. The class begins with a recap of previous knowledge, where students use small clocks to distinguish between 'past' and 'to' times, and engage in storytelling exercises to reinforce their ability to tell time to 5-minute intervals. They then delve into activities designed to deepen their understanding of the hour and minute hands, learning to read the minute marks on the clock face and to count in multiples of 5 to efficiently calculate the time.

Through practical exercises, children apply their knowledge by setting their own clocks to represent various times described by the teacher, further exploring the concept of 'past' and 'to' times. The lesson includes challenges and reasoning questions that encourage students to verbalise their thought processes, using stem sentences such as "I know it's… because…" to articulate their reasoning. To accommodate different levels of understanding, the lesson plan provides tailored activities for working towards expected standards, working at expected standards, and working at greater depth. These activities range from telling the time to the nearest minute on an analogue clock to drawing clock hands to represent specific times, including calculations for time before or after a given time. The lesson aims to address common misconceptions such as misidentifying the minute and hour hands, incorrect counting of one-minute intervals, and confusion between 'to' and 'past' the hour.