Telling time to the nearest minute: labeled clock | Math | 3rd grade | Khan Academy

Let's look at this clock and see if we can tell what time is shown on it.

First thing, when we look at a clock, we have two hands, and that's because time is told in two parts. Time is told in hours; that's part, and on a clock, the hours are represented by the shorthand. Then the other part is minutes, and on an analog clock like this one, minutes are represented by the long hand.

So let's look first at hours. We have this short hand, and it's between the six and the seven. What that means is it's after 6:00 but not quite 7:00, because our hand started at the top and it worked its way around. It's gone past 6:00, but it's not 7:00. So it's 6 something. It's 6 something. It might be 6:15; it might be 6:45. We'll figure out the minutes next, but we know it's after 6:00 but not at 7:00, so we'll put a six in our hour's place.

Then for minutes, we have this longer hand, which is pointing right here at this mark. Minutes, again, start at the top and work their way around, but now each of these little spaces is 1 minute. So we can go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and when we get to this first square, the first where this one is, we've gone 5 minutes. Let's keep going like that: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 at this next one.

Maybe you see a pattern here. Every time we get to one of these numbers, or the squares, the bigger marks, we've gone five more minutes. So if we keep going, this will be 15 minutes past the hour. Keep going: 20, keep going: 25. Now, we can't go all the way to the six because our minute hand stopped here; it hasn't reached this part.

So after 25, we'll go back to counting by ones: the 1 minute. We have 25, 26, 27. The minute hand has gone past 27 of these marks, meaning it is 27 minutes past the hour.

Let's try another one. The hour hand is between the 4 and the 5, which means it's after 4:00. It's some amount of minutes after 4, but it is not yet 5.

Now, let's look at our minute hand. The longer hand represents minutes. So the minute hand started at the top, and it's gone 5, 10, 15, not quite to 20. So let's go back to 15 and then count by one: 16, 17, 18, 19. Our minute hand lines up to 19, so it is 19 minutes after 4, or 4:19.

On this one, I encourage you to pause the video and see if you can figure out the time.

Okay, let's try it together now. So the hour hand is between the seven and the eight. So it's after seven but not quite eight. By looking at the hour hand, we can see it's quite a bit after seven because it's almost eight.

Looking at the minute hand confirms that the minute hand's gone all the way to here. It's almost back to the top, and that minute hand, starting at the top, has gone 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and then one more, 46 minutes past.

46 minutes past 7. The time is 7:46.