Learning Areas: Math, Art

Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour

Grades: K-3

Students will create a visual daily plan, organized by time of day. Sketching the activities that will occur each day and noting the time spent preparing for or attending school helps children become familiar with new routines.

Materials

• Crayola Markers
• Construction Paper
• Crayola Glue
• Tape
• Crayola Scissors

Instructions

Discuss:

• Engage the class in a discussion about the importance of daily routines and how having a daily schedule can help them feel comfortable in school.
• Review analog clock displays. You might draw various times on the board and have children read them or specify when key activities occur, including lunch, story time, snack time, etc. Have children depict those times by drawing hands on their clocks. Explain or review the modifiers “a.m.” and “p.m.”
• Ask students to think about their daily activities and the times at which they occur.

Create:

• Each child will choose a few activities to illustrate. They might include the time they wake up, catch the school bus, eat lunch, travel home, etc. They will add an analog clock showing the time of each activity on each drawing.
• To create the clocks, students will cut several circles out of construction paper and write the key numerals in the correct places on each circle: 12, 6, 3, and 9, They can write numerals or dashes to indicate the other time increments. They will draw in the minute and hour hands on each clock to indicate the time of the activity.
• Children who understand minute-to-minute increments of time could display clocks that show events that happen at, for example, 7:05 a.m., 8:17 a.m., 12:45 p.m., 4:15 p.m., and 6:03 p.m.
• Students will draw each chosen activity on a series of pieces of construction paper that they will later tape or glue together as a timeline. They will glue the appropriate clock to each section.

Present:

• Students will present their illustrations, describe the activities, and identify the times displayed in the illustrations.

Connect:

• Students will compare their timelines with their classmates’. Older students could connect the times shown on their clocks to other time zones across the country or around the globe. What are children in other time zones doing at the same time they are doing each activity?

Learn More

• Read a book such as Telling Time, by David A. Adler and Edward Miller, or It’s About Time! by Stuart J. Murphy and John Speirs.
• Explore other timelines and how they can be used to show seasonal variations, weather patterns, health merits, and growth milestones.