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In a previous post, I talked about strategies for teaching students to tell time, and today I want to focus on how are students can get in some telling time practice easily in their day. I’ve got 3 types of telling time practice activities that are perfect for task box independent work systems and a free one you can download and try.

As we all know, when we are teaching in a consistent, systematic manner, we need to make sure that our students are learning with explicit instruction, practicing what they have learned, and generalizing their skills. Task boxes in independent work systems make a great way to get that type of practice on skills they have mastered during instruction. They also can be used to generalize skills to new materials.

These tasks lend themselves well to independent work stations and are easy to use with little to no real prep work on your part. Plus they are easy to check to see that the students are doing them correctly. So, let’s get started!

**Click on any of the pictures to check out the full bundle-which lists the individual products shown in the post!**

File Folder Task Boxes for Telling Time Practice

As we all probably know, file folder activities make great task boxes for independent stations. They meet all the requirements of evidence-based independent work systems in that the amount of work is clear, the task itself is typically clear, and (with Velcro) they will stay together when put in the finished area. This allows you to check it, as well as helping the student know the task is complete and not repeat it.

These file folders include both analog and digital clocks, since students need to practice using both. They are also scaffolded so that you can choose the matching tasks fitting the skills that your students have mastered.

They are broken down into either file folders or binder pages that match either analog or digital clocks or watches to identical clocks with:

• whole hours to whole hours
• half hours to half hours
• quarter hours alone
• quarter hours, whole and half hours
• clocks to 5-minute times

Students just starting to learn time can start with matching clocks to clocks for whole hours. And more advanced students can matching more specific times up to 5 minutes.

And, if you aren’t a fan of storing file folders, laminate the individual pages and store them in a binder.

Telling Time Practice Task Cards

Easy to Prep:

As you can see, I love using task cards for task boxes for so many reasons. One of the best is that they are really easy to prep. Cut them, laminate them, and use dry erase markers or clothespins to select the answers and they can last forever.

Work With Student Who Memorize Tasks?

No problem with task cards because you can mix them up each time. This keeps the task fresh and keeps students from just memorizing the answers in order.

Great for Differentiating

I also love task cards because they are easy to differentiate for different students. This set is scaffolded similarly to the file folders above with different times up to 5 minutes, starting at identifying times for hour times.

Plus, if you have a fast worker or a slow worker, just choose the number of task cards that the particular student needs to complete within their allotted time frame. Some students might do 10…others 5 depending on their fluency with the skill.

Using Worksheets for Telling Time Practice Task Boxes

Finally, worksheets are probably the easiest task boxes to prep because you can print them and go. Put them in page protectors and use dry erase markers and you can reuse them with no prep other than printing.

I also love worksheets for telling time practice because they give us a permanent product we can use for data collection. And, as I always say…if you can use work product, let’s do it. So much easier than us having to write down what we observe!

This set of worksheets has enough worksheets to practice 1 every day of the school year–and sill have some left over! They each have 10 multiple choice problems so the format is consistent. The problems change with the same scaffolding as above.

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