Math: clocks and fractions

Many children recently got watches which was a great lead into our unit on telling time. Over the last couple weeks in Math class we have been exploring telling time.  We have counted seconds, experimented with how different a couple minutes can feel depending on what you are doing, and how to read a clock. At this point, all the children have mastered telling time to the hour and half hour and are practicing telling time to the minute. 

One of the activities we have been doing includes each child having their own "clock".  I say a time and the children have to show it on their clock. One thing that often gets mixed up is the hour and minute hands. With more practice everyone will eventually get it.

We have also looking at the various ways you can say the same time, for example you can say half past 1 or 1:30 or a quarter after 2 or 2:15. These discussions segued to looking at fractions. We are reading a few pages at a time from Working with Fractions. The study for fractions has introduced 2 new math words: numerator and denominator. One thing the children found strange, but logical once you thought it through, is that when the denominator gets larger the pieces get smaller. Totally intriguing.