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Australia
Year 4

7.01 Tell time

Lesson

Are you ready?

Can you read time off a clock?

Examples

Example 1

What time is shown on this clock?

A clock that shows the small hand  between 7 and 8 and the long hand at 5
Worked Solution
Create a strategy

For the hours, use the number that the small hand has just passed. For the minutes, multiply what the long hand is pointing at by 5.

Apply the idea

The small hand is just passed 7.

The long hand is pointing at 5, so, 5\times5=25.

The time shown is 7\text:25.

Idea summary
  • When naming the times between 1 and 30 minutes, we describe this as how many minutes 'past' the hour.

  • When naming the times between 31 and 59 minutes on the clock, we describe it as how many minutes 'to' the next hour.

Hour and minute hands

When we read the time from a clock, called analogue time, it doesn't look like digital time. Once we learn how a clock works, we can see how the time can be shown two different ways, like these two clocks:

An analogue and digital clock showing the time ten past 3. Ask your teacher for more information.

They both show ten past three.

Let's see how each hand on our clock works, and work out the time, then see the digital time.

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Examples

Example 2

What time is shown on the clock?

A clock where the hour hand points just passed 12 and the minute hand points at 3 ticks past the 8.
Worked Solution
Create a strategy

For the hours, use the number that the small hand has just passed. For the minutes, multiply the number that the long hand just passed by 5. Then add the number of ticks the long hand is after the number.

Apply the idea

The small hand just passed 12.

The long hand just passed 8, so to find the minutes we multiply 8 by 5:8\times5=40 Then we need to add 3 small ticks, so 40+3=43.

The time shown is 12\text:43.

Idea summary

The small hand on the clock points to the hour of the day and the long hand points to the minutes within that hour.

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