Daylight Savings Elementary Lesson Plan
Elementary school children who have learned to tell time and understand the calendar are ready to learn about the confusing concept of Daylight Savings. This lesson is best taught in the spring, just before and after Daylight Savings goes into effect. Timing the lesson this way will make it relevant to your students' lives and they will be more likely to remember everything they need to know about Daylight Savings.
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Spring Forward, Fall Back
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Start your lesson by explaining that two times a year, we adjust the time on our clocks. Tell them, "We spring forward an hour and fall back." Have all students stand in a line in the front of the classroom. Ask them to crouch down and pretend to be a frog. Have them hop forward one step. Then ask them to crouch down, hug their knees, and roll onto their backs. Remind them, "Spring forward, fall back." Allow them to repeat the exercise a few times. There will likely be some giggles, but it will reinforce the idea.
After the exercise, go into more depth about what this little saying means. In the spring, the clocks are moved forward one hour and in the fall the clocks are moved back one hour. Everyone changes their clocks at the same time. We spring forward the second Sunday in March and fall back on the first Sunday in November, always at 2 a.m. Use a real clock to give the students a visual of the clock moving from 2 to 3.
Purpose
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Go around the classroom and ask each student what his or her favorite summertime outdoor activity is. Write each one on the chalkboard. Once all the activities are on the board, explain that Daylight Savings allows it to stay light out longer in the summer, which means that they all have more time to be outside enjoying the activities that they love. Tell them that when it is warm outside and families spend time outside, they are saving electricity. Having more daylight hours means more time outside and more saved electricity. In the winter, there are less hours of daylight to begin with, and it's too cold to play outside much. Daylight Savings does not help as much in the winter.
Aftermath
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The Monday morning after Daylight Savings time goes into effect, review your lesson from the previous week. Allow the kids to spring forward and fall back once again and quiz them on how much they remember about what time of day the change occurs and any other facts that you discussed together.
After review time, discuss how Daylight Savings time affected them over the weekend. Ask how they felt on Sunday morning after losing an hour of sleep. Did they have trouble getting up in the morning? Was anybody late to someplace important on Sunday? Allow for some group discussion and stories about their experiences helping their parents change the clocks or anything else they would like to share.
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