My mouth watered and my stomach grumbled as I looked through the window. We had traveled for a couple of hours to eat here, but we arrived too late. The restaurant was closed. 😭 Learning how to tell time in Spanish can help you prevent this situation if traveling in a Spanish-speaking country.
We arrived too late because we didn’t bother to find out the business hours from the person who told us about the restaurant. And, of course, there was nothing good open nearby, so we ended up eating at a restaurant with less than stellar food.
Learning to tell time is important because if you or your kids are like my husband and Alex (who have never met a stranger), chances are good you’re going to get recommendations from locals, and you’ll want to know the times to go so you don’t miss out like we did.
Teaching your kids how to tell time is easy using these activities. I have broken telling time into three lessons to keep you and your kids from feeling overwhelmed by it. This is the second lesson. Make sure you have completed the first lesson before starting this one.
This lesson reviews the hours (1:00, 2:00, etc.) and teaches the first half of the clock (minutes 1 – 29). The activities include a video with listening practice, reading practice, and games.
Download the FREE printables here:
This Is What I Did to Teach My Kids How to Tell Time in Spanish
Before starting this lesson, there are a couple of 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 once we get to the lesson with the second half of the hour. 🤪
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 learning to tell time 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 first time lesson to review the hours and half hour. Then I used the script and said the times for this lesson while Aidan pointed to the flashcards. He was able to find them pretty quickly by the time I started on column B.
If you’re learning Spanish with your kids, check out this video. I recorded the script so you can hear the pronunciation OR your kids (and you!) can do the activity with the video.
Conversation
Normally, this is an activity that I spend a lot of time on because the conversation and mini-stories are really important to learning Spanish (and my favorite part when kids are creative). But there are only about 10 questions with this lesson, so this went fast.
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.
Aidan was trying to figure out siete on the reading activity because he confuses seis and siete. So I read it to him thinking if he heard it, that would help him. Except I said, “it’s seven” instead of saying, “it’s siete.” 🤦♀️ Hopefully, that was me code-switching and not losing my mind! 😄
For another reading activity, I created a Kahoot (a quiz game) that only has the first 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 (it’s free) if you want to play.
Then search for “la hora – los minutos 1 – 29 fosternm” to play my Kahoot. There are lots of quizzes for time on Kahoot, but they will have different times including from the second half of the hour. Those will be good to play later after completing all of the time lessons.
Games
Besides Kahoot (which I always think of as a reading activity), this lesson has the partner listening game. That’s the most boring name for a game ever, but this is where you don’t want to judge a book by it’s cover. It’s actually a really fun game, and most of my students love it!
This is definitely better if you have kids playing against each other, but it is possible to play with just one person. Since I’m just teaching Aidan right now, he played by himself. He is very competitive, so he played against the timer. We decided he had to find the time I said within 7.5 seconds. He beat the timer for the whole game, so he won!
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.
Learning how to understand and say the time in Spanish can help you avoid travelling misadventures like ours and missing something súper important like the best pancakes or churros con chocolate. 😓 Start with completing the TPR activity with the flashcards. Then play the games for lots of fun practice to continue learning how to 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!
Have you missed out on something when traveling too? 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!
