Math in Spanish class?!? But we’re just learning how to say time in Spanish? Why would we need to do math? 🤯 This was me when we started learning the second half of the hour in my high school Spanish class.
We learned how to tell time in high school all at once. It was overwhelming! I didn’t want to repeat this experience. So I broke down how to say time in Spanish into three lessons to keep it simple. This also gives more repetition of time for each part of the clock so kids will learn it better and be able to speak it better. The activities are reading and listening which are the best type of activities for learning a new language!
This is the third lesson so make sure to complete the first time lesson and the second time lesson before starting this. If you haven’t started teaching your kids Spanish yet, check out my Start Here page for the best way to begin!
This lesson teaches the second half of the clock (minutes 31 – 59), and the activities include listening practice, reading practice, and games.
Download the FREE printables and instructions here:
This Is What I Did to Teach My Kids How to Say Time in Spanish
Before starting this lesson, there are a few requirements: knowing how to tell time in English AND knowing the numbers 1 – 29 in Spanish. Please, please, please do NOT do this lesson if your kids can’t tell time in English. Trying to teach kids to tell time in English and Spanish will be confusing and frustrating. Especially with this lesson. 🤪
And please do NOT do this lesson if kids don’t know the numbers 1 – 29. Trying to learn the numbers in Spanish at the same time as trying to do subtraction with those numbers will be too much. You can complete my lesson for numbers first if kids don’t know the numbers yet.
Total Physical Response (TPR)
Before we started this lesson, Aidan played the Kahoot from the second lesson to review the hours and first half of the clock (minutes 1 – 30). I gave Aidan the vocabulary list and very briefly explained to him how the second half of the hour works in Spanish.
Basically, when you hear a number and menos (like Son las ocho menos…) then that means the hour is the previous number on the clock.
For example: Son las ocho menos… = 7.
Then the number after menos is the minutes which you subtract from 60 to equal the time.
For example: Son las ocho menos diez = 7:50 (60 – 10 = 50).
This was Aidan’s face: 😦 If your kids are confused too after a brief explanation, don’t worry about it. Just jump into the activities, go slowly, and they’ll pick it up.
And don’t be like my students and think you can cut corners and say it like a digital clock. 😆 Every.single.year I have at least one student ask why we can’t just say time like what you see on a digital clock. That’s not a thing in Spanish.
After the brief explanation, I used the script to randomly say the times for this lesson while Aidan pointed to the flashcards. I made sure to pause for a second after saying menos so he could figure out the hour before trying to figure out the minutes. That seemed to help. After going through Column A, I had him listen to the video. He was able to find the times on the flashcards pretty quickly by the end of it.
Reading
There are two reading activities: the first is matching a clock with the time in a sentence and the second is reading the time and then writing it with numbers.
For another reading activity, I created a Kahoot (a quiz game) that only has the second half of the hour to practice what is in this lesson. If you don’t have a Kahoot account, you’ll need to make one if you want to play. It’s free to make an account and play.
Then search for “la hora – los minutos 31 – 59 fosternm” to play my Kahoot. There are lots of quizzes for time on Kahoot, which will be good to play as a review after completing this lesson.
Games
Before we played Las carreras (the racing game for this lesson), we played Memoria (Memory). For more listening practice, I said the times in Spanish for the number cards and the time in English for the word cards. If you’re not sure about the times, you can use the vocabulary list as a cheat sheet. 😊
Besides Kahoot (which I always think of as a reading activity), this lesson has Las carreras – one of my favorite games to play with students. Aidan always likes it too. Las carreras means the races and normally my students play in small teams against each other.
But, I discovered this game still works even with only one kid. We use a timer and decide how much time Aidan has to complete a problem for that round. This time, he started with 1 minute which was way too much time. So for the second problem, he gave himself 30 seconds. Still too much time.
For the third problem, he gave himself 15 seconds. That was perfect. It gave him enough time to complete each problem, but there was still some urgency to finish because the clock was running out of time fast. If you’re playing with one kid (or your kids want to play individually), I highly suggest choosing a time together that will give them a chance to win but not be too easy.
You can also play 3 games with the flashcards: Peces (Go Fish), Memoria (Memory), and/or Matamoscas (Flyswatter). I have the instructions for each game in case you haven’t played any of these before.
Using these easy listening and reading activities will make learning how to say time in Spanish fun instead of stressful! Start with using the flashcards and complete the TPR activity. Then play some of the flashcard games for fun practice so you and your kids can tell time in Spanish!
Did you do these activities or know anyone who wants to start teaching their kids to tell time in Spanish? Please share with the buttons on the left!
If you took Spanish in high school, did your brain explode like mine when you were learning to tell time? Tell me about it in the comments below!
P.S. Are you looking for a quick and fun way to help your kids start learning Spanish? If so, check out my free Spanish for Kids Starter Guide! You can immediately use any of the 9 simple tips to introduce your kids to Spanish. Know what the best part is? You don’t have to know Spanish to use it!
