Elapsed Time Number-Line

Jan 7, 2011 | 47 comments

We’ve recently been learning different ways to solve elapsed time problems. One way that students found helpful was using a line so that it was easier to visualize the problem. Marshall and Amanda created a video to help show one way to solve an elapsed time problem.

We found that using a number-line to solve elapsed time really helped a lot! We begin by drawing out a number-line. We place the beginning time on the left side and the ending time on the right. Then, starting on the left hand side, we find out what the next whole hour would be. We put how long it would take us to get from the beginning time to the next hour on our number-line. Then we jump to the ending time and we go backwards to the previous hour. In between that we put how much time is between those. Then, finally, we right down how much time is in between those two hours in the middle. We add up all of our time and we have the amount of time that has elapsed from the beginning until the end!

If you’d like your students to try out solving elapsed time with a number-line, feel free to use the worksheet below.

Did this way of solving elapsed time help?

Can you think when you might need to solve an elapsed time problem?