How Long Does It Take

Est. Class Sessions: 2

Summarizing the Lesson

Revisit the "About One Minute," "About a Few Seconds," "About Five Minutes," and "About One Hour" charts. Direct students' attention to the "About One Day" chart. See Materials Preparation. Ask students to think of activities that take about one day. Since the time periods are longer, it might be difficult to think of activities that last an entire day. Students may also suggest changes that occur in about a day or activities that they do off and on in about a day because they have to take time to eat, sleep, and do other things. For example, it may take about a day to read a book even though they will not be reading continuously for 24 hours. List these activities on the chart. See Figure 5 for a list of possible activities.

Ask:

Now we are looking at time periods that are longer than an hour. Think of something that takes about a day. (Possible response: It takes me about a day to read a book.)
Why is it harder to think of activities that take about a day? (Possible response: We have to take time off during the day to eat and sleep and do other things.)
Are there some other things that take about a day or happen in a day? (Possible response: the sun comes up, goes down, and comes up again.)

Discuss the different suggestions. Remind students that some people may take less than a day or more than a day to complete some of the activities.

Refer students to the "About One Week," "About One Month, and "About One Year" charts you prepared. Use discussion prompts similar to the ones you used for the "About a Day" chart. See Figures 6, 7, and 8 for a list of possible activities for each of the time periods.

After all the charts have been completed, display them in the classroom and allow students to add other activities to the charts.

Use the How Long Does it Take pages in the Student Activity Book to assess students' abilites to connect the passage of time (seconds, minutes, hours) to events and activities using drawings [E8].

To provide targeted practice: