The One O'Clock Trick

There are a number of effects involving time whil I have used and will discuss but this one in particular has been very sucessful.

Jim Steinmeyer describes this trick but I believe it may be older than his description. I initially decided to do it as a physical activity with 6year olds. The clock is layed out on the floor and the kids all choose a time. It has spelling, counting, running around, and a surprise ending. There is also a variation using 10 numbers.

The schoool involved uses a lot of circle time activities and this presentation was designed with that in mind.

Laying 12 cards on the floor makes a large clock. The hour is written on the cards both as a number and a word. Everyone thinks of an hour then stands at 12 o’clock. They then spell out the name of the hour they have chosen moving around the clock with each letter. This is done to a handclap so everyone moves together. This brings them to a second hour and they then spell the name of that hour in the same way. Doing this 3 times will bring everyone to one o’clock no matter what the original hour they thought of.

The activity is repeated several times with the same result.

In this activity you are learning the hours and how they are spelt while moving around. The activity has been designed to involve as many learning styles as possible.

- plays with words (Vernal/Linguistic)
- plays with questions and numbers (Logical/Mathematical)
- plays with pictures (Visual/Spatial)
- plays with music (Music/Rhythmic)
- plays with moving (Body/Kinesthetic)

There are a lot of counting effects that can be made into physical activities with participants playing the parts that are usually played by cards.