Telling time

Let’s review what you already know…..

You know that the clock has two hands. The long hand is the minute hand and the short hand is the hour hand.

You also know that there are 12 numbers placed around the face of the clock. Each number stands for a certain number of minutes past the hour. If you know how to count by 5’s then you know how to figure out how many minutes past the hour it is.

For example: When the minute hand is on the 6, that means that it is 30 minutes past the hour . We can use multiplication to help out too. 6 X 5 = 30

Keep going….you’re doing a great job..

More clock 5’s

If the minute hand is on the 3, how many minutes past the hour is it?

15 How about on the 8? 40 How about on the 5? 25 How about on the 7? 35 How about on the 11? 55

The minute hand goes around once for every hour. When the minute hand is on the 12, the hour hand is pointing exactly at an hour. When it has gone exactly between the hours, it is called “half-past” the hour. When the minute hand points to the 3, it has gone a quarter of the way around, so it’s “a quarter past” the hour.

Now you are really sailing through this activity………keep up the good work.

An hour is 60 minutes, a quarter of that is 15minutes. So our “quarter past 4” is the same as 15 minutes past 4. That’s what it means when the minute hand points at the 3 on the clock. It is written as 4:15. The 4 is the last number the hour hand pointed at, and the 3 is the number the minute hand points at.

Let’s say that the hour hand is past the 1, in fact more than halfway to the 2, the minute hand points to the 7, meaning that it’s 35 minutes past the hour. That’s a little more than half-past one.

You can also call this 25 before 2.

How do you know that?

You can count by fives while you imagine the minute hand continues around to the 12. It will take 5 minutes to get to the 8, 10 to get to the 9, then 15, 20, 25 minutes to get to the 12. So it’s 25 minutes until the next hour, which is 2.

The hardest times to read are when it’s just before an hour. That’s when it’s important to understand how the hour hand moves. Suppose it’s just five minutes before 2 o’clock. Then the hour hand is also at the 2, and the minute hand is at the 11. But we read this as 1:55, not 2:55, because it’s 55 minutes after 1 and 5 minutes before 2.

We are almost finished

You are amazing……..I knew you could do it.

The last step will be to learn to read minutes between the fives. That can wait until you’re ready. It’s best if you have a clock that has a little mark at every minute. Usually we don’t need to be that exact. If the minute hand points near the 7, but not exactly, you can say “it’s about 1:35.”

The big numbers

The big numbers on the clock tell what number hour it is when the hour hand points there, but each one also stand for five minutes. It will be helpful to get a clock with the minute markings on it. Once you get used to it, you should be able to imagine the minute numbers around the outside, by just counting by fives.

Our time is up for today. Now all you have to do is to practice the skills you have learned.