Teacher: Mrs.

Oliver
Grade: 3
Content Area: Math

1. Content and Standards: Standard - CC.2.4.3.A.2 Tell and write time to the nearest minute
and solve problems by calculating time intervals.

2. Prerequisites: Students should know how to use a stopwatch and have some familiarity
with seconds.

3. Essential Questions: How do I tell elapsed time? What unit of time should I use to
measure?

4. Materials and Equipment: Stopwatch, Pencil, paper

5. Instructional Objective: Students will know that seconds and minutes are measures of
time and be able to conceptualize time as a continuous measurement.

6. Instructional Procedures:

 Before: Teacher will have students repeat the lesson goal in an ‘I can statement’: I
can understand that time is a continuous measurement.
As a whole group, students will complete the following fluency activities:
a. Tell the Time on the Clock
b. Minute Counting (count by 5s to 60, using a clock)
c. Group Counting (7s to 28, 8s to 32, 9s to 36)
Next, students will be given 4 minutes to complete the following application
problem: Ms. Bower helps her kindergartners tie their shoes. It takes her 5
seconds to tie 1 shoe. How many seconds does it take Ms. Bower to tie 8 shoes?

 During:
a. Teacher will review the application problem with the class.
b. Teacher will help students explore seconds as a unit of time
i. Teacher: It takes Ms. Bower 5 seconds to tie one shoe. Does it take a
very long time to tie a shoe?
ii. Teacher: Let’s see how long a second is. Teacher will let the
stopwatch tick off a second and display this to students.
iii. Teacher: It’s a short amount of time! Let’s see how long 5 seconds is
so we know how long it takes Ms. Bower to tie 1 shoe. (Let the
stopwatch go for 5 seconds).
iv. Teacher: Let’s see how long 40 seconds lasts. That’s the amount of
time it takes Ms. Bower to tie 8 shoes. (Let the stopwatch go for 40
seconds.) Teacher will tell students the count after every 5 seconds.
v. Teacher: seconds are a unit of time. They’re smaller than minutes, so
we can use them to measure short amounts of time.
 vi. Teacher: What are other things we might measure using seconds?
(students will discuss)
vii. Teacher: How many seconds do you estimate it takes us to touch our
toes and reach up, ten times. Let’s use the stopwatch to measure. Go!
viii. Teacher: (displaying the stopwatch) It took us ___ seconds. Use
mental math to compare your estimate with the real time. How close
were you? (Select a few students to share.)
ix. Teacher: The tool I’m using to measure seconds is called a stopwatch.
We can start it and stop it to measure how much time passes by. It has
two buttons. The button on the right is the start button, and the one on
the left is the stop and reset button. When we stopped the stopwatch,
did time stop, or did we just stop measuring? Explain.’
x. Teacher: Time is continuous. Continuous means time does not stop but
is always moving forward. We just use stopwatches and clocks to
measure its movement. The stopwatch is a tool to measure time.
Students will be asked to think about where stopwatches are used in
real-world contexts, for example, in swim meets and races. Then,
discuss the purpose of the stopwatch in these contexts.
xi. Teacher: We will now estimate and then measure how long it takes to
complete each of these activities:
1. 1x1 array
2. 2x5 array
3. 6x10 array

c. Teacher will help students explore minutes as a unit of time.

i. Teacher: When I look at the clock and notice that ___ minutes have
passed since began math class. Minutes are longer than seconds. Let's
find out what the length of a minute feels like. Sit quietly and I will
measure a minute with a stopwatch. Go!
ii. Teacher: What does a minute feel like? Is it longer than a second?
iii. Next, teacher will time 1 minute while a student talks about his/her
favorite game. Teacher will say, let's see if the length of 1 minute feels
the same. Go!
iv. Teacher: Did 1 minute feel faster or slower than when you were just
watching the clock?
v. Teacher: How long a minute feels can change depending on what
we're doing, but the measurement always stays the same. What are
some other things we might use minutes to measure?
vi. As a whole group we will use a stopwatch to measure:
1. Touch their toes and raise their hands over their heads 30
times.
2. Draw 2by2 array
3. Draw 3by3 array
4. Draw 4by4 array
d. Teacher will help students explore time as a continuous measurement.
 i. Teacher: We can use the stopwatch to start measuring how many
minutes it takes to get dark outside. Will it take a long time? How do
you know?
ii. Teacher (starting the stopwatch and wait impatiently.) Should I keep
measuring?
iii. Teacher: (Stop the stopwatch.) Imagine that I measure how long it
takes for all the students in this class to turn 10 years old. Is a
stopwatch a good tool for measuring such a long amount of time?
iv. Teacher: Time keeps going and going, and a stopwatch just captures a
few seconds or minutes of it along the way.
 After: Students will complete Lesson 1 on Zearn.

7. Assessment: I will assess student answers during lesson and use Zearn (online
assignment) to determine if students were able to meet the lesson objective.

8. Differentiated Instruction: The use of a stopwatch is used help students to see and
understand the passing of time. Students are asked to use mental math to determine the
difference between their estimation and the actual amount of time it took to complete
tasks.