Write Time to the Nearest Minute

Students will practice writing time in digital format (h:mm) after reading an analog clock to the nearest minute. They will also match written times to clock faces and describe times using 'minutes past' and 'minutes to' language.

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Grade 3 · Telling Time & Time Intervals · question 1 of 3

0 of 12

12 rungs. A star at the top.

Read the clock. The time is ___:00.

Your answer:

How it is taught

0:00 of 3:28

Digital time uses a colon between hours and minutes.

Minutes are written with two digits.

The hour is the number before the colon.

Read it: Fives, then ones

4:37: count by fives to the 7, that is 35. Then count on 2 more by ones: 37.

Find the last numeral the long hand passed: the 7.
Count by fives to it: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.
Count on by ones to the long hand: 36, 37. The short hand has passed 4, so it is 4:37.

Each numeral is 5 minutes along from the one before, so the 7 is 35 minutes past the hour.

The long hand stopped 2 minutes past the 7, and those last minutes are counted by ones.

Fives get you close fast; ones finish the count exactly.

Count by fives to the last numeral the long hand passed, then count on by ones.

Reading the 7 as 7 minutes and writing 4:07.

The 7 means 35 minutes. 2 more by ones makes 37: 4:37.

The short hand has passed 2. The long hand has passed the 9 by 3 minutes. What time is it? — 2:48. The 9 is 45 minutes, and 3 more is 48: 2:48.

Reading 4:17

Let's read this clock and write the time to the nearest minute.

Grade 3 · Reading a clock and writing the time as h:mm

First, look at the hour hand. It's just past the four, so the hour is four.

Write a four for the hour.

Then write a colon. The colon separates the hour from the minutes.

Now the minutes. Around the clock there are sixty tick marks — one for every minute.

Our minute hand points to seventeen.

Write one, seven, for seventeen minutes.

We always write the minutes with two digits — that's why it's seventeen, not just seven.

We can also say this time out loud: seventeen minutes past four.

The time is four seventeen. Nice work reading the clock!

Now you try. Read this clock to the nearest minute. What time is shown?

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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