Telling the time lesson plan

Stand-alone lesson ESL kids lesson plan

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Telling the time

In this lesson students practice asking for and telling the time. Students review numbers 1-12, play fun games and activities, sing a song, read a funny story about clocks and make a clock craft.

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Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Telling and asking for the time.
Structures: “What time is it?”, “Please could you tell me the time?”, “It’s _ o’clock”.
Target vocabulary: clock, o’clock, time.

Lesson materials

Printables:

Clock craft sheet
What time is it? worksheet
Reader worksheet
What time is it? song poster

Songs:

What time is it?

Readers:

What time is it?

Additional materials:

Telling the time vocab crossword
Telling the time vocab word search
What time is it? 2 worksheet

Supplies:

[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] pencils
numbers 1-12 written separately on A4 sheets of paper and stuck on classroom walls
board with marker / chalk
device to play the song on

Notes:

This is a really good lesson for introducing your students to telling the time as it contains key vocabulary and structures. The gestures in the song are easy and fun – your students will enjoy swinging their arms around with the times in the song.

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

The beginning of your lesson is extremely important: this is where you set the tone of your lesson and get everyone in the right frame of mind for learning English. It is also an opportunity to check homework and review previous lessons.

Click for warm up suggestions for the start of your lessons

Print this warm up and maintenance section

These activities can be done in the following order at the start of your lesson:

1. Greetings and name tags
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. Before class prepare some blank name tags (stickers or pin-on tags). Give these out and have everyone write their names and put their tags on. If you use pin-on tags, you can keep and give out every class.

2. Homework check
Check each student’s homework set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?”), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a smiley face). Finally, tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.

3. Review past lessons
Reviewing past lessons is very important – students need constant practice of new vocab, structures, songs, games and so on. Always review parts of your last lesson as well as some parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing – it’s fine to recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar games (although be careful not to play a game to death!). See the section “Other ideas to include in your warm” below for ideas.

Note:

You can also include review activities in the main body of your lesson. Kids can have short attention spans so it’s good to be able to pull out lots of activities during different stages of the lesson.

Other ideas to include in your warm up:

Ball pass questions
This is good to review questions from previous lessons. Get everybody standing in a circle.

Round 1:
Take a ball and hold it and say, “My name is (you name)”. Then throw the ball to one student and say, “What’s your name?”. Students throw the ball around randomly, saying their names and asking for names.

Round 2:
This time ask a review question, e.g. “How many tables are there?”. Then throw the ball to a student who should answer, “There are (6) tables”. Help if necessary. Then that student throws the ball to another student and asks a “How many …?” question. Continue so everyone has a go. You can have multiple rounds with different topic questions.

Play “Spin the bottle”
Sit students in a circle with a bottle in the middle. Teacher spins the bottle. When it stops spinning the student it is pointing to has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that student can spin the bottle. This is a good class warm up activity (e.g. How are you? What’s your [hide_on_uk]favorite[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]favourite[/hide_on_us] food? How’s the weather today?, etc.

Play “Vocabulary basketball”
This is a fun game which reviews vocabulary from previous lessons. You will need a basket (a trash can) and 2 balls (or 2 pieces of A4 paper scrunched up into balls).

Form 2 teams and line them up so that two players from each team are facing the front with the basket in front of them. Let both players throw their ball – if they get their ball into the basket they can try and win a point by giving the correct answer to a question the teacher asks. This can be an actual question (e.g. What are you wearing?) or a flashcard (What’s this?). Then they go to the back of the line. At the end, the team with the most points is the winner!

Play “What’s missing?”
This is a fun review memory game – students will have to try to remember review objects from previous lessons (e.g. classroom stationery). Lay the objects out on a table for all to see. Allow the students a minute to memorize the positions of the objects. Remove an object and hold it behind your back. Say, “Open your eyes!” – the first student who can shout out the missing object wins a point for his/her team. Play for all the objects.

Finally, calculate which team has won the most points and give them a round of applause.

Play “Quiz game show”
This is a fun quiz game, like a simple version of a TV game show. Draw some circles on the board and randomly write numbers 1, 2 or 3 in each circle. These will be points.

Put students into teams. Then ask the first team to choose a number – 1 is an easy question (e.g. “Do you like bananas?”) and 3 is a difficult question (e.g. point at a clock and ask, “What time is it?”). 2 will be in between in terms of difficulty. When the question has been answered correctly, erase that number circle. Play until all the number circles are gone – the team with the most points is the winner!

Read a classroom reader again
As you progress through the lessons you will start to build up a catalog of classroom readers (see our Readers download page at https://www.eslkidstuff.com). Kids love going back to old stories and reading through them again. Invite a student to pick a classroom reader and read through it as a class. Make the story as interactive as possible by asking questions (e.g. what [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] there are, the names of different objects, etc.) and getting students to speculate what is going to happen next in the story.

Talk about the weather (do after you have taught the weather lesson plan).

Prepare a weather board. Before the first class prepare a piece of cardboard and cover it with felt – you are going to pin this to the wall. If you can, try and get blue felt (to represent the sky). Write at the top in large letters, “How’s the weather today?”. Below that write “Today it’s”. Cut out weather pictures (such as our weather flashcards) and stick some velcro on the back. Arrange the weather pictures around the edge of the board and then put the board on the wall of your classroom. You can now use this weather board at the beginning of every lesson.
Ask about the weather. Ask, “How’s the weather today?” and have students put up their hands. Allow one weather condition per student (e.g. “It’s rainy”) and have each student come up and put a weather picture on the weather board.
Introduce more weather vocabulary. Depending on weather conditions, you can introduce more weather words (with pictures … you can get students to draw them), such as:

stormy
misty
showery

freezing
humid
frosty

icy
drizzly

New learning and practice:

1. Introduce a clock and review numbers 1 to 12
Start the lesson by bringing in a clock or alternatively make a craft clock using our clock craft sheet. Elicit and chorus the word “clock”. Then point to number 1 and elicit the number. Point to each number 1-12 in order and elicit the numbers (you can move the hour hand around as you do this).

2. Practice recognizing numbers 1-12
Before class prepare twelve A4 sheets of paper with a number (1-12) written on each piece. Place the numbers randomly around the walls of the classroom at a height where your student can reach them.

In class, draw your students’ attention to the numbers and say, “Point to number 1”. Everyone should point. Then go through all the numbers 1-12.

3. Play “Touch the numbers on the wall”
Get everyone standing in the middle of the classroom. Shout, “Touch Number 7!”. Everyone should run and touch that number – it will be a mad scramble but good fun! Then go through the rest of the numbers.

4. Write the numbers on the board
Along the top of the board write the numbers in order 1-12. Divide the class into 4 teams and get each team to elect a representative to write on the board. Have the 4 students come to the board and tell them they are going to race to write the numbers 1-12. The winner will win a point for their team. Say, “Ready – Steady – Go!” and the 4 students race to write the numbers. Then get another 4 students to have a go. At the end the team with the most points is the winner.

5. Teach the time vocabulary
Hold up your clock and set a time (e.g. 4 o’clock). Ask the class, “What time is it?”. Elicit / teach, “It’s 4 o’clock”. Move the hand to another time, and ask again (you can also ask, “Please could you tell me the time?”). Go through the hours eliciting the times from the class until they have got the hang of the structures.

6. Practice the gestures of the song
Stand everyone in front of you. Say, “Point your hands at 1 o’clock” and demonstrate how to do this (hold one arm straight up at 12 and the other at 1). Then say, “Point you hands at 2 o’clock” … continue all the way round to 12 o’clock.

7. Sing the “What time is it?” song
Now everybody is ready to do the gestures for the song “What time is it?”. Start the song and demonstrate moving your arms to show the times as the song is sung – get everyone to follow you and sing along.

Lyrics for “What time is it?”

Tick-tock-tick-tock
Tick-tock-tick-tock

Chorus:
What time is it?
What time is it?
Please could you tell me the time?

Verse 1:
It’s one o’clock
It’s two o’clock
It’s three o’clock
It’s four o’clock
It’s five o’clock
It’s six o’clock

Tick-tock-tick-tock
Tick-tock-tick-tock

Chorus

Verse 2:
It’s seven o’clock
It’s eight o’clock
It’s nine o’clock
It’s ten o’clock
It’s eleven o’clock
It’s twelve o’clock

Tick-tock-tick-tock
Tick-tock-tick-tock

Gestures for “What time is it?”

For this song your students are going to be human clocks, using their arms to show the time. Have everybody stand up with plenty of room to move their arms around without hitting anyone.

For the question words sing along and hold your hands out, palms up, in the question gesture.
For the times, hold your arms straight out in the time position. So, for 1 o’clock, hold one arm straight up towards 12 and the other arm towards one. As the song continues, one arm will move around the clock counting off each hour.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
<br /> [/hide_on_us]

8. Do the clock craft sheet
Before class print out the clock shape craft sheet – enough so that each student has one. You can either cut out the shapes before class or have your students cut out the shapes in class. You will also need fasteners for each clock to fasten the arms to the clock.

In class, after constructing the clocks, put students in pairs. First model the activity with a student. Student A sets a time on his/her clock and asks, “What time is it?” or “Please could you tell me the time?”. Their partner answers. Each pair takes it in turn to ask each other.

9. Read classroom reader “What time is it?”
By now your students will have had a good amount of practice telling the time so we can reinforce the new phrases with a fun story. Before class, download and print off the reader “What time is it??”. As you go through each page, point to the clocks in each picture and elicit the times they are showing, for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 1) “One day Colin Clock met his friend, Ana clock” … Which one do you think is Colin Clock?
Students: The blue one!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right. (pointing at the clocks) … This is Colin Clock and this is Ana Clock. What [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is Ana Clock?
Students: Pink!
Teacher: Yes, pink! (reading from page 1) “Oh dear!”, said Colin Clock. “What time is it?” … Let’s look. What time is Colin Clock showing? (pointing at Colin Clock)
Students: 3 o’clock!
Teacher: Good Job! And how about Ana Clock? (pointing at Ana Clock)
Students: 7 o’clock!
Teacher: Yes! But they both have different times! (Teacher looks puzzled). (Reading on …) “Let’s ask Tom Clock” … etc.

Continue through the story, asking for the times. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. about the clock [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us]) and even ask yes/no questions about the times on the clocks (making mistakes, of course), for example:

Teacher: (reading from page 3) ““Hello Tom Clock!”, said Ana Clock. “What time is it?”” … What time is Tom Clock showing? Is it 2 o’clock?
Students: No!
Teacher: No? Well, what time is it? (pointing at Tom Clock)
Students: 1 o’clock!
Teacher: Is it? (Looking more closely). Oh, yes it is! Well done! etc.

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and read through the story one more time (without stopping for questions, etc.) as students the write the order that the clocks appear in the story and the times they show on their faces. Then go through the answers as a class.

Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required).

10. Play “What time do you?”
Still using the clocks, your students are going to show you the time they usually do things. Ask the class questions, such as, “What time do you usually wake up?” (if they are not sure you can use gestures to show what you mean). As you ask the questions, everyone should move the hands on their clock to the time they do these activities. Then select some students to orally tell you their time (e.g. “I wake up at 7 o’clock”). We are only concentrating on “o’clock” for this lesson, so if students have times on their clock such as 7.20 you can teach “About 7 o’clock”.

Other routine questions you can ask the time for could be: eat breakfast / lunch / dinner, go to bed, go to school, leave school, take a bath, do homework, brush teeth, etc.

Wrap up:

Assign homework: “What time is it?” worksheet

Click for wrap up suggestions for the end of your lessons

Print this wrap up section

1. Assign homework
Each week give out a homework worksheet for your students to take home. Hold up the homework worksheet and model how to do it. Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags”.

2. Do “Quick check”
Time to leave the class. Make sure everything is put away and the students have gathered their belongings. Have them line up at the door and place yourself between the door and the students. For each student check one new word or phrase, for example:

hold up an object or flashcard (such as an item of clothing) and ask, “What’s this?”
ask a question from the lesson (e.g. “Where do you live?”, “Do you like bananas?”, “Can you play chess?”, etc.)

When they give you the correct answer say goodbye and let them leave. If their answer is wrong, have them go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!