Lesson Video: Reading Clocks to the Nearest Five Minutes Mathematics • Third Year of Primary School

Video Transcript

Reading Clocks to the Nearest Five Minutes

In this video, we’re going to learn how to tell the time to the nearest five minutes. And we’re going to do this on both analog and digital clocks. We’re also going to be learning how to draw hands on an analog clock to show times to the nearest five minutes. Now, before we start looking at clocks, let’s practice a skill that’s going to become very useful in this video. What do you like it? Skip counting in fives. Let’s remind ourselves how to do this, starting with zero, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60. How many fives did we count? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

Now, we did say skip counting in fives like we’ve just done is a very useful skill when it comes to telling the time. Now, imagine you could pick up this number line. And imagine you could bend it so it made a circle shape. In fact, imagine that you could bend it so it became a circle shape all the way around so the two ends that we’ve labeled in pink here joined up. It would probably look like this, wouldn’t it? The gap between one number and the next number on a clock face is worth five minutes. And this is why the skill that we’ve just practiced of skip counting in fives can help us to tell the time.

Let’s take this minute hand on a journey around the clock face. To help us understand what’s going on, we’ll also include the time in words and what the time might look like written as a digital time. At the moment, we can see the minute hand is pointing straight up to the number 12. Of course, this is what we call an o’clock time. Now, on an analog clock face like this, we don’t have the number zero to show we’re starting a new hour. But we do use two zeros, don’t we, on a digital clock to show that it’s an o’clock time.

The minute hand is about to start going around the clock again in a new hour. So let’s get ready to skip count in fives. Five — five minutes have now gone by since the o’clock time. And we could say this is five minutes past whatever time it was. Can you see how the digital time has changed too? It shows something :05. It’s five past. Let’s carry on counting in fives and you can watch how the words and the digital time change. Five, 10, 15. And let’s stop here for a moment cause this is an interesting time. When the minute hand points to the number three and it’s 15 minutes past the hour, it’s also gone a quarter of the way around the clock face.

Can you see that the shaded area is the same as one-quarter? As well as 15 minutes past something, we can also say it’s a quarter past time. Let’s keep counting from 15. 20, 25, 30. This is an important one to stop on too because although 30 minutes have gone past, we don’t usually say this time as 30 minutes past something. Do you remember how we say this time? When the minute hand points to the number six, it’s gone half the way around the clock face; half an hour has gone by. When 30 minutes have gone by, we say it’s a half past time, don’t we?

When the minute hand points to the number seven, 35 minutes have gone by. Can you see what’s happening here? The minute hand has gone past halfway, and it’s getting closer and closer to the next o’clock time. So although this time is 35 minutes past something, we can also look ahead and see how many lots of five minutes there are to something. We can see that there are five, 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes to the next o’clock time. So as well as 35 minutes past, we can also read this time as 25 minutes to. There are 60 minutes in a whole hour. So if 35 minutes have gone by, then there must be 25 minutes left.

Let’s keep our minute hand moving. Count on from 35. 40 — and because 40 and 20 make 60, we can also read this time as 20 minutes to, 45 minutes past. And because 45 and 15 make 60, we know that 45 minutes past is the same as 15 minutes to the next hour. And if we look at the white area of the clock, we can see that this is a quarter of the clock again. So another way to say this time is as quarter to something. Nearly there, 50 minutes past or 10 to, 55 minutes past or 5 to. And then we’re back to a new hour with another o’clock time.

Although it took a while to go through those different times, hopefully, it’s helped you to understand how to read times to the nearest five minutes. In other words, time is where the minute hand is pointing to one of the numbers on the clock face. Let’s practice what we’ve learned now and answer some questions where we have to tell the time to the nearest five minutes.

Find the missing number. The time is 2 what.

We’re given a sentence here with a digital time in it. We can tell it’s a digital time because we can see these two dots here. Now, they usually separate two numbers in a digital time. But we can see one of our numbers here is missing. This is the missing number we’re being asked to find. Let’s try reading the time on this analog clock to work out what number’s missing. If we look first at the hour hand, that’s the shorter hand, we can see that it’s pointing somewhere in between the numbers two and three.

Now, where would it have been pointing at 2 o’clock? Do you remember? It would’ve pointed to the number two, wouldn’t it? At o’clock times, the hour hand points to a number. So we can see although it’s come past the number two, it hasn’t reached the number three yet. And this is why when we look at the digital time at the bottom, we know that it must be two something. We know that the first number in a digital time, that’s the number before the two dots, shows the number of hours that have gone by. And the number after the two dots, that’s our missing number, shows the number of minutes that have gone by.

So how many minutes have gone by? If we look at the minute hand, we can see that since 2 o’clock when it would’ve been pointing to the 12, it’s gone all the way round to the number four. How many minutes is this? We can count in fives to help us. The gap between one number and the next number on a clock face is always worth five minutes. So we can skip count in fives until we reach the number four on the clock face. Five, 10, 15, 20. The minute hand has turned from pointing to the number 12 to pointing to the number four. By skip counting in fives, we can see that the time is 20 minutes past 2. As a digital time, this is 2:20. And so our missing number was the number 20.

Look at the clock. Find the missing numbers to tell the time in different ways. It is 55 minutes after what. It is five minutes before what. Pick the clock that shows the same time.

To begin with, we’re given a digital clock and told to look at it. What time does it say? 9:55. Now, how do we read a digital time like 9:55? What do the numbers mean? The digit or digits that come before the two dots show the number of hours that have gone by. In this case, it’s 9 something. And the two digits that come after the dots show the number of minutes that have gone by. In this case, it’s 9:55. Now, we can describe the time 9:55 in different ways. And we need to find the missing numbers to help us do this.

The first sentence says, “It is 55 minutes after what.” How do we know from our digital clock that it’s 55 minutes past something? It’s those digits that come after the two dots, aren’t they? They show us the number of minutes that have gone by, 55. So to fill in our first gap, we need to think how many hours have gone by. It is 55 minutes after 9. At 9:55, it’s 55 minutes after 9 o’clock.

Now, this next sentence is interesting. It is five minutes before what. Now, you probably know which hour of the day we’re going to fill in here. If it’s 55 minutes after 9 o’clock, then the next time will be 10 o’clock, won’t it? So it’s five minutes before 10. But how do we know it’s another five minutes before 10 o’clock? We know that there are 60 minutes in a whole hour. So if 55 of those minutes have gone by, there are only another five minutes left before the next hour. And this is why if the time is 55 minutes after 9, it’s also five minutes before 10.

Finally, we’re given four analog clocks to choose from. And we need to pick the clock that shows the same time. And there are two ways we could find this answer, but one’s a lot quicker than the other. Would you rather imagine where the hands would be at 9 o’clock and count up to 55 or imagine where the hand should be at 10 o’clock and count backwards five. Counting backwards five is much quicker, isn’t it?

We know that at an o’clock time, like 10 o’clock, the minute hand will point directly upwards to the number 12. We also know that the gap between one number and the next number on the clock face is worth five minutes. So if the time is only five minutes before 10 o’clock, we would expect the minute hand to be pointing to the number 11. It is five minutes away from an o’clock time. So to begin with, let’s look at our four clocks. Do any of them show a minute hand pointing to the number 11?

On the first clock, it’s pointing to the number 10. So we can forget this clock. On the second and third clocks, it’s pointing to the number 11. So these could be the right answer. And then on the last clock, it’s pointing to the number 10 again. Don’t get confused by that short hand that looks like it’s pointing to the number 11. The minute hand is the longer hand, and here it’s pointing to the 10. So we can forget this clock too.

To work out which of our two possible answers is correct, we need to now think about the hour hand. If it’s 9:55, where would you expect the hour hand to be? Remember, at 9 o’clock, the hour hand points to the number nine. And at 10 o’clock, it will point to the number 10. But we haven’t got to 10 o’clock yet. We’re very close though, aren’t we? We’re only five minutes away. So we would expect the hour hand to be almost pointing to the number 10. Can you see which one of our clocks is correct? It’s this one, isn’t it?

The time on our digital time said 9:55. And we knew this meant 55 minutes after nine. We could also write the time as five minutes before 10. And the analog clock that shows the same time as this is the one where the minute hand is pointing to the number 11. And the hour hand is almost pointing towards the number 10.

Look at the clock. Find the missing numbers to tell the time in different ways. It is 35 minutes past what. It is 25 minutes to what. Pick the clock that shows the same time.

To begin with, we’re shown an analog clock that we need to look at. What time does it show? Now, often on an analog clock, we’ll have two hands, the hour hand and the minute hand. But can you see this very thin red hand here? This is called the second hand. And it goes quite quickly around the clock face. But all we need to tell the time are the two black hands, the hour and the minute hand. So we’re going to ignore this thin hand here.

To begin with, let’s look at the minute hand. That’s the longer hand on our clock. Where’s it pointing? We can see that it is here, pointing to the number seven. Now, we know that at an o’clock time, the minute hand will be pointing to the number 12. So how many minutes have gone by to go from the number 12 all the way round to the number seven? It’s five minutes between one number and another number on the clock face. So let’s skip count in fives to see how many minutes past it is. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35. When the minute hand points to the number seven, it’s 35 minutes past something. And that’s where we get our first time that we need to fill in. It is 35 minutes past what.

To find the missing number, we need to look at the hour hand. It’s pointing in between the numbers four and five. What does this mean? We know that at 4 o’clock, it would’ve pointed exactly to the number four. So it’s already gone past 4 o’clock, but it hasn’t reached 5 o’clock yet. So we can fill in our first missing number. The time is 35 minutes past four. Now, there’s another way we can say this time. We’ve gone past 4 o’clock. But as we’ve said already, we’re on our way to 5 o’clock.

Our next sentence says it is 25 minutes to something. But as we’ve said already, we know that the next o’clock time is going to be 5 o’clock. But let’s just take a moment to see why there are 25 minutes to 5 o’clock. At 5 o’clock, the minute hand is going to have to travel all the way around back up to the number 12. And again, we can skip count in fives to see how many minutes this is. There are five, 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes until 5 o’clock. That’s where the number 25 comes from here.

Now, which of these two digital clocks shows the same time as the one we’ve been talking about? Now, we need to think carefully here because we might see the numbers 4:35 in this second time and think, “Well, this must show 35 minutes past 4.” Or we might see the numbers five and 25 in this first time. And I think that it has something to do with 25 minutes to 5. What do the digits that come after the two dots on a digital time tell us? Is it the number of minutes past an o’clock time or the number of minutes to the next o’clock time? They show the number of minutes past. And so if it’s 35 minutes past 4, the time is 4:35. We read the time on the analog in several different ways. It is 35 minutes past 4. It’s also 25 minutes to 5. And the clock that shows the same time is the one that says 4:35.

What have we learned in this video? We’ve learned how to tell the time to the nearest five minutes on both analog and digital clocks.