Time

Get to grips with time

Your child could use their knowledge of fractions to tell the time on an analogue clock to the hour, at half past, at quarter past and at quarter to the hour.  Encourage them to tell the time at different points during the day, including to the nearest 5 minutes.

It is important your child knows how to compare and record time in terms of seconds, minutes, and hours using vocabulary like o’clock, am/pm, morning, afternoon, noon, and midnight.

Try to talk to your child about how different units of time relate to each other. For example, they should know that there are 60 seconds in a minute and that there are 24 hours in a day. You could ask your child to work out problems such as finding out how many seconds there are in three minutes.

Make a clock together

Making a clock with your child will help them get to know the features of an analogue clock – for example, the long hand is the minute hand and the short hand is the hour hand. You could add words to the clock to support your child, such as o'clock, quarter past, half past, and quarter to.  They may well be more keen to practise telling the time using a clock they have made themselves! Take a look at the activity sheet below to find out how to make a paper clock.

Try this online game