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Tell Time to the Nearest Five Minutes

Students read both analog and digital clocks to tell time to the nearest five minutes. Students skip count by 5s around the clock to determine minutes and connect analog and digital representations of the same time.

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Tell Time to the Nearest Five Minutes

Grade 2 · Telling Time · question 1 of 3

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12 rungs. A star at the top.

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What time?

Your answer:

How it is taught

0:00 of 3:49

The long hand shows minutes.

Each number stands for five minutes.

The short hand shows the hour.

Read it: Counting minutes by fives

You look at the clock. Counting every minute around would be slow. The minute hand is on 8, and the clock reads 2:40.

  1. Find the minute hand. It points at a numeral.
  2. Count by fives around to the 8: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.
  3. The minute hand on 8 is 40 minutes. Read 2:40.

Counting every minute around the clock works, but it is slow, and you lose the count.

Each numeral is 5 minutes, so jumping numeral to numeral is five times faster.

The hour hand names the hour; the minute hand names the minutes. They do different jobs.

The minute hand counts minutes by fives around the numerals.

Reading the 8 as 8 minutes instead of 40.

The 8 is a numeral. Count by fives to it: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.

The short hand is just past 4 and the long hand points at the 1. What time is it? — 4:05. The long hand counts minutes by fives round the numerals, so the 1 is 5 minutes past 4.

Reading 7:20 on an analog clock

Look at this clock. Can we figure out what time it is?

Grade 2 · Skip-count by 5s to read the clock

Here's our clock with all twelve numbers and two pointing hands.

The long hand is the minute hand. It tells us the minutes.

Each number on the clock stands for five minutes. Let's skip-count by fives.

Five minutes at the one.

Ten minutes at the two.

Fifteen at the three.

Twenty at the four — that's right where our minute hand is pointing!

Now look at the short hand. It tells us the hour.

It points just past the seven, so the hour is seven.

We write it like this: seven, two, zero.

Seven twenty! Nice work reading the clock.

Now you try. Read this clock and type the time. What time does it show?

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics
Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal
1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now
Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

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