Visualizing the 24-Hour Clock Teacher Jo Leland of Kingwood, TX, suggests using a clock face with two parts--an inner ring with hours 1-12 and an outer ring with hours 13-24. This helps students visualize how a 24 hour clock works and relates to a 12 hour clock. To help students calcualte the minutes of a photoperiod she suggests having an actual clock with moveable hands. Jo Leland Hidden Hollow Elementary Kingwood, TX jo.leland@humble.k12.tx.us I've always wanted to make a clock face with two parts. Front would be white and have the regular clock hours, but on a larger circle behind the clock face would be a different color circle with 2nd half of the numbers that make up military time. For most of our kids, that is a very difficult part of the task. I find that for most kids, the concept of military time is both easy and confusing. Especially as the numbering actually crosses over in both directions at noon and midnight. Here is my idea for a clock to simplify matching am and pm sections of the time. Be sure to include the arrows shown in the closeup if you make one for yourself. An added suggestion for students to use in calculating the minutes aspect of photoperiod is to find or make a clock with actual moveable hands. For kids that have a hard time with the last part (minutes on the hard ones where sun sets earlier than end time on table, I've had some luck with one of those little manipulative clocks by Little Judy? They are yellow, and we work our way from the end of the table to sunset in chunks. First to the next 5 minute mark, count on to :30 or :00 and then add the minutes in last partial hour. Turning the hands seems to help.... If you have tips you'd like to share, please write to Journey North: jnorth@learner.org Back to Teacher Tips Page This Season Teachers Kids Orientation Registration Search Copyright 1997-2008 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Questions or comments? Contact us.