Writing About Math: Telling Time

Time has been on my mind. Partly because it is flying by and partly because it's what I've been teaching about in my classroom.  I LOVE when I can integrate the subjects that I teach. It maximizes my time and just makes sense. One way I've done that is to have my students write through the curriculum. That means we write about whatever we are learning about in the other subject areas.
We recently worked on telling time and determining elapsed time in math and sequencing in reading. So I decided to put all that together and have my students write on the topic of their favorite time in school.


We started by identifying times and sequencing events of our school day. Students drew hands on each clock to show the time.  They wrote a sentence telling what they do and drew a matching picture for each time. At this point we solved elapsed time problems using the clocks and times represented on the pages. This makes the problems they solve very relevant to their own lives. They find out how long it is between different points in their day.

Next we used a four square organizer to record our topic and to help us brainstorm and organize the writing we were getting ready to do. We talked about the ways authors "hook" students into their stories. 

We decided to use the "Sound Lead" for this writing. Students started by thinking of a sound they would hear while doing the activity they chose as their topic. They were so good at figuring out these sounds. Then they had to write two different reasons why they enjoyed that place/activity. They came up with two details for every reason and marked them with bullets. Then we added a conclusion.

I always write along with my students and model each part of the process.  I modeled how to take ideas from the four square and use them to draft a paragraph. They watched me as I wrote out mine. I am sure to talk out loud as I write. They listen as I struggle at times to figure out lines, how I constantly reread as I draft and how I sometimes change words while I'm drafting. They see that it is ok to scratch out words and to just sound out spelling while drafting. 

Then it was their turn to draft theirs. We make sure to share a little along the way. It helps the reluctant writer so much to hear what good writing sounds like. 

After revising and editing they were ready to share their paragraphs

This writing activity is a great way to review paragraph writing along with telling time. 

I've added this file to my Teacher Pay Teacher Store if you are interested. 

You can check it out here: 

My Favorite Time of Day Writing Activity Set