analog clocks

In the last two posts, I talked about Stories For Young Readers and the Phonics & Spelling series from Kinney Brothers Publishing. In this post, I’ll focus on supplementary materials and provide links for a closer look at each resource.

A solid textbook series is worth its weight in gold. On the other hand, no textbook can give you everything you need in the classroom. Classes are as different as the students who come to study. Differentiation, age levels, extra and special activities, homework, and assessments are some of the myriad ways supplementary materials serve a teacher in the classroom. Personal and school libraries should have resources that are congruent in content and readily available to meet the dynamic needs of your curriculum.

You’ll find an abundance of supplementary materials that work in tandem with our textbook series. They are available as digital download files in our online store, Donald’s English Classroom, or as printed textbooks from Kinney Brothers Publishing.

Phonics Challenge, Book 1, drills young ESL students in identifying and spelling three-letter (CVC) words through basic exercises, puzzles, and games. Phonics Challenge, Book 2, offers worksheets for identifying and spelling silent ‘e’ (CVCe) words. Each textbook works with a base vocabulary of 80 words. With review pages, game boards, reading, and writing exercises, The two-book Phonics Challenge series will give your students hours of engaging and enjoyable English practice. Check out the previews for Book 1 and Book 2!

Easy Sight Words 1, 2, & 3 drill students in a vocabulary of twenty-five sight words in each textbook. The textbooks offer differentiated exercises for easy writing, word identification, and reading practice. Review pages include primary word building activities, word-order exercises, graphing, word search, game boards, and more! With a focus on contextual language building, the Easy Sight Words series is complementary to any phonics and reading curriculum. Download previews for Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3!

Q&A can be used as a teacher’s resource or as a textbook to provide students with over 200 pages of primary question and answer practice. Students are drilled in basic question forms using do, can, are, is, what, when, how, where, which, and who. The worksheets cover simple present, present continuous, and simple past tenses with language appropriate for beginning ESL students. This is an invaluable resource for every language teacher and school library! Be sure to check out the preview for Q&A!

Clock Work exercises ESL students in the primary skill of reading and understanding analog clocks. Simple, step-by-step worksheets guide students from easy practice to more complex concepts of telling time and language. These basic worksheets are useful for children who are just learning to read clocks thru adults brushing up their language skills. Download the preview for Clock Work here!

Cursive Writing! exercises young ESL students in the primary skill of cursive handwriting. Step-by-step lessons lead students from easy ABC practice to writing longer passages. While building students’ dexterity and recognition skills, Cursive Writing! also introduces students to the pleasure of expressive handwriting. Be sure to check out the preview for Cursive Writing!

If you’d like to learn more about all Kinney Brothers Publishing has to offer, please download our catalogues! Peruse the complete lineup of our Global Edition ESL Textbooks or check out our ESL Store right from your desktop! Sign up for our newsletter and download a free CVC I Have/Who Has Activity Set!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at info@kinneybrothers.com.

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing
kinneybrothers.com

Yuki had a green paper watch wrapped around his wrist with the hands of the clock permanently drawn to 3:00. I asked him what time it was. “Oyatsu no jikan!” (Snack time!) he replied. “Oh!” I said. “That’s something to look forward to!”

Yuki couldn’t read a clock yet, but at four years old, his teachers were introducing the concept of analog clocks in a fun way and anchored in a daily event that was important to him.

Those little paper watches are super easy to make and kids really like them. Download a free set of templates by clicking on the image below. Teachers also use these watches for sight-word and CVC word practice!

How and when to begin…

I begin teaching my ESL kids clocks when they start learning in their own language. Because my classes are only once a week for 50 minutes, I regularly teach a little bit about clocks over a very long period of time. Starting with paper watches, I plan ahead by planting seeds for future practice.

For young English language learners, reading, writing, and speaking the time is a convergence of several different concepts and skillsets. Numbers alone can be used to teach most of the language skills necessary for reading digital clocks and speaking the time. Once kids have learned CVC words like six and ten, sight words like one, two and it’s, and CVCe, or long ‘e’ words, like five and nine, reading time as text can begin. As for the concept of reading an analog clock, you can give that up to the culture at large and simply ride closely on its coattails. As your kids learn to tell time at home and at school, be there to support their efforts and begin introducing easy, parallel English lessons.

FYI – In Japan, being able to hear the spoken hourly time and read digital time is part of the first (Bronze) level of the aural Jidou Eiken tests for young English language students. Click the link to learn more and download sample tests. It’s worth investigating if only to learn about the vocabulary required to pass the three-level tests.

Getting ready…

Practicing time can begin very early on. I prefer flashcards to plastic clocks with hands that can be manipulated simply because they don’t break and they aren’t perceived as a toy that older kids may object to. With a good set of clock flashcards, there are numerous games you can play that will make repetition more enjoyable.

Here are a few fun ideas to try in class:

Make sure that clock is part of your primary classroom vocabulary flashcards.
Place a clock image of the time your class will end on a classroom board. Kids will become super clock-watchers.
Set a time for a simple event to happen – like dropping your pencil or clapping your hands. Be sure you’re distracted when the time comes and be surprised when it happens.
Hand out hour flashcards and have students play a simple I Have/Who Has activity. “I have 1:00. Who has 2:00?”
Hand out hour flashcards and have students line up in order of the hours.
Tack hour cards around the room (add half hours, quarter hours, etc. as your lessons progress) and have students individually go to the time directed.
Hand students a stack of clock flashcards and have them sort the cards into time order.
Write digital times on the board and have students match the time with analog flash cards.
Once kids start learning to read time as text, write times on the board and have students match the times with analog cards. Setting this up as a relay brings a competitive and fast-paced edge to an otherwise simple exercise.

Remember, clock exercises are another opportunity to review the challenging numbers eleven and twelve, and later on 20, 30, 40, and 50. If you need a good set of number flashcards, you can download them here for free. If you’re in need of a refresh on your flashcard activities, download 50+ Flash Card Activities for ideas to get you going.

Diving in…

Once students are comfortable with reading simple hours, it’s time to begin doing worksheets. Tack completed worksheets into interactive notebooks so they can be reviewed later. Over time, these worksheets will become an invaluable and easy-to-access reference for future lessons where time is practiced.

If you’re looking for worksheets, here are the first ‘hour’ exercises from my textbook, Clock Work. Download and try them out in class. They’re free and I think you’ll like how the worksheets are differentiated. Click on the image above to visit my web site and learn more about the textbook.

After lots of hour practice, adding half hours is the easy next lesson. From this point, understanding and retention should begin to happen faster. Then, it’s step by step, reviewing and practicing numbers in quarters, tens, and fives for times like 9:30, 3:15, 10:40, and 8:55. To repeat, if you see your kids only once a week, plan on teaching a little over a long period of time, and don’t forget to review. It will add up!

Clock games…

I’d love to hear the approach and activities you use when teaching time to younger students. I have a lineup of games I like to use, like Clock Bingo, Clock I Have Who Has, 4 in a Row, and clock game boards. Clock flashcards and differentiated worksheets provide repetitive practice and handy visuals for explaining time concepts.

Over the years I’ve learned that teaching students how to tell the time in English is not a one-off lesson. From the early skill of reading an analog clock, then reading and expressing time in text, to understanding the language variances of telling time in English, a little at a time goes a long way. Make sure students are solid in the early lessons and you’ll have fewer problems building their language skills later on.

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney

Kinney Brothers Publishing