Teaching Time with An Inquiry Approach

If I’m to be honest, teaching elapsed time is not my favourite thing to do. It’s pretty close to pulling my own teeth, but of course, ultimately, far more rewarding.   With interactive timelines things get far more interesting.

With 3rd grade, it is such a tricky concept to grasp, particularly with hours and minutes. And then when you throw in years and A.D and B.C ( now also known as Before the Common Era /B.C.E and the Common Era/ C.E) , we can really end up quite tied in knots. But once they’ve got it, by golly, the wee angels are soaring! And their teacher is on cloud nine with them!

The review, by the time we get to 4th and 5th grades, isn’t quite as painful, thank goodness, and fine tuning those time lines and introducing more complex variations can even become a fun experience for all involved with great digital variations that the kids love exploring. I’ll get to more of those in a bit.

There are numerous ways to teach elapsed time and I wanted to share a few favourites of mine. As always, within the IB PYP, I like to keep things as inquiry based as possible and make the experience an authentic learning experience.  Kill and drill worksheets, in my opinion, make math oh so boring.

Using timelines is a great math tool to effectively illustrate the passage of time in addition to the events that occur over time. They are a great way to add math to any unit of inquiry that looks into the past and/or compares the connections between past, present and future. There are many strategies out there for teaching the tricky concept of elapsed time. Given that we have a myriad of different types of learners, I wanted to share a few that I have found to be particularly effective with my kiddos.
I like to review this concept with my students before setting them out to create their own timelines, particularly when it comes to B.C.E (B.C.) and C.E ( A.D.) Pick & choose the journey for your class for easy differentiation.You will know where to start with this for your own class.

The Toilet Paper Timeline

Key Concept: Form  Following on from math where we learned about measure and scale behind elapsed time,( how many days in a year, years in a decade, century, millennium etc), I posed the problem, “If each square of toilet paper is one century, how many squares will we need to show from 6000BC to 2015AD?” This was an eye opening inquiry as the children “saw” that all of life today fits into one single square!! Great visual for recognition of how very old the world is and how very tiny we are in the whole spectrum of time passed.  We then taped our toilet paper time line around the room to reinforce the visual representation of time behind us and where we stand on that timeline.

The Interactive Timeline

Key Concepts: Change and Connection
Using an interactive timeline in our class during an inquiry allows the children to not only add dates of major events to the timeline, but also to see the connections and changes over time, categorise events and key players, compare other timelines and even infer how the timeline of events may end. Can you change history? What advice would you give to people of that time?  There’s really so much you can do.
This of course instigates further independent inquiries from the children and

I encourage them to do their own research to find the answers to their questions. We actually add our questions and answers to our timeline, together with observations of change & connections across time, with sticky notes.

Deeper Thinking: To add rigour for my older kids, I will have them create their pattern on their timeline independently, thus showing their understanding of elapsed time. For example: 2018 to 1900. The child may choose to jump back in a pattern of multiples of 6 until they reach the year 2000 rounding down and then for the remainder, show the leap in multiples of 50, utilising the correct number of circles in the timeline, until they reach the year 1900. These patterns will vary according to the children thinking it through. See the example below. This shows a set pattern that adds to the higher level thinking that will require the children to think through the pattern of numbers/multiples for creating their timeline. Time lines can then be compared and discussed amongst others. The mathematical conversations that arise are fantastic!

The Number Line

Key Concepts: Form & Function The good old number line ties in well visually with the timeline above. Students actually get to see the jump in time as we round our time up to the nearest multiple of years or minutes, record the time “jumped” and then add them altogether. This is a good tool, I have found, for those kids who are more visual learners or they have less of a grasp with their number sense and prefer to really see the jump in time and draw the jump for themselves.

Integrating Related Content with Math: Elapsed time &
Literacy: Non fiction text features

Key Concepts: Function & Form  I have used this as a homework activity.
It can also be used in class in small groups or individually.
As part of our non fiction text features, I showed the children an example of various types of timelines.
We noted the connections and chatted about the different layouts.
Then the children selected their own style, did their research and created their own differentiated timelines.
Reflection: The children presented their timelines, relaying the time passed and the dates of major events BM ( before me)  and AB. (after I was born)
We then compared those timelines to our class interactive timeline.

Digital Timelines: A Technological  Storyboard

Key Concepts: Form, Function & Connection  The web is filled with great tools for creating digital timelines. These that I am mentioning are all free, kid friendly and are really great fun to use. My fifth graders have used these with maths inquiries and within their exhibition presentation. The finished products all look professional. Great way to add technology to your maths. Click on the links and explore away! 

Sutori –   almost like a slide show but better. It allows you to embed pictures, audio and video clips and has ready-made templates. Probably better for older kids or those kids who are very techy. ( in other words they don’t need me when it gets tricky!)

TimeGlider –this is a great one that is similar to Google maps in that it allows you to zoom around places and add the images to your timeline.

ReadWriteThink – kid friendly and can be used in conjunction with literacy too! One of my faves for a more basic digital timeline. Better for the younger kids I think.

Tiki-Toki – the basic version is free and allows you to create fabulous animated timelines. This is a popular one with the kids!

The T Chart

Key Concepts : Form & Function  Oldies but goodies. I create most of the anchor chart with the children present rather than in advance. Thus they get to see it in creation, interacting with the process of the strategy rather than as a pre-prepared work of  art. It hangs for all to see, analyse and copy as a working document.  With less visual representation of the jump in time as the Number Line,  it too shows the rounding up of time and then totalling the time in order to find the elapsed time. It’s great to have them practice with their own t-charts in their notebooks as a strategy for solving time problems. I find that this T chart is more successful with those kiddos who have a better grasp of number sense.

The Inquiry Based Math Project

Key Concept: Depends on the inquiry  These are my favourite! I have a previous  post about integrating math into the IB PYP which you can link to here. These projects are fantastic tools for exactly that. There are two projects currently in my store that look at elapsed time problems and inquiries and others, listed below, that focus on other maths skills and standards

The Great Time Travel Adventure is geared towards 4th and 5th grades standards and phase 3/4 of the IB PYP and is so much fun, particularly with the design of their own Time Travel Machine. Kids are SO TOTALLY engaged with this one. As well as elapsed time and timelines,  it also covers place value with large numbers, measure of area and distance and math inquiry into well known structures across the world  as the children travel across time.( The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Standing Stones of Easter Island, China’s Terracotta Warriors etc.)

The Pilgrims’ Journey to America is suitable for 3rd, 4th and 5th grades with the story of the pilgrims’ journey across the Atlantic towards America. It also includes measure with scale and distance with a mapping inquiry, planning a Thanksgiving feast, scale and measure of the Mayflower ship and fractions suitable for IB PYP phase 3 & 4.

Other inquiry based math projects that you may like to look at include:

If the World Were A Village – Area, Volume, Operations, Ratios

Our School – Number, Measure & Geometry

Planning A Popcorn Party – Measure, Data Analysis, Number

The American Revolution  – Problem Solving, Place Value, Finding Fractions, Scale

Design A Haunted House – Area, Volume, Polygons & Polyhedrons, Data Analysis

Truly, integrating maths into your unit of inquiry adds to the holistic authenticity of the learning. I know that it can sometimes be a juggle and even a struggle with this task but I hope that some of these ideas and tools can help make your job that wee bit easier.

Please share your own thoughts, ideas and tools in the comments below. I am always keen to learn new ideas from my peers.

Enjoy!