Tracking Time

Grades 2-5

What you'll need
Clock or watch, newspaper, blank paper, and graph paper (can be hand-drawn)

What to do

1. Together with your child, keep track of the time he or she spends watching television as well as doing homework. Make a table listing the 7 days of 1 week. Keep two columns, one for television and one for homework. At the end of the week, see if together you can make a graph comparing the two different activity columns.
2. While watching television, make a chart showing how much time in every hour is used for commercials compared to how much time is used for the actual show. Do this for every half-hour of television you watch. Then make a bar or pie chart showing the two amounts. Time the minutes carefully.
3. Together with your child, keep track of how he or she spends time in one 24-hour period: time spent sleeping, eating, playing, reading, and going to school. Measure a strip of paper that is 24 inches long. Let each inch represent 1 hour. Color in the number of hours for each activity, using a different color for each activity. When finished, make the strip into a circle and place it on a blank piece of paper. Trace around the circle. Then make lines from the center of the circle to the end of each color. Your child has just made a circle (pie) chart of how he or she spends 24 hours. Compare this with how other people in your family spend their time.

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