Measuring time in seconds

Measuring time

You can measure time in seconds, minutes and hours.

Which unit you choose depends on what you are trying to measure.

A second is a short length of time.

There are 60 seconds in 1 minute.

There are 60 minutes in 1 hour.

Why not see how much you know about this topic already? Then work through the page and see if you can beat your score.

A duration is the length of time something takes.

You can measure short durations of time in seconds.

Image caption,
It takes about 1 second to clap your hands once.
Image caption,
It takes about 10 seconds to write your full name.
Image caption,
It takes about 30 seconds to sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ twice!
Image caption,
It takes about 60 seconds to eat a banana, if you chew properly!
Image caption,
You can use a watch, clock or stopwatch to measure time in seconds.
Image caption,
The second hand on a watch is the long narrow hand that shows the seconds. It takes 60 seconds or 1 minute for the second hand to go around the watch face once.

It's important to be able to accurately measure time in seconds.

You also need to think about how you record time, if an activity takes longer than 60 seconds, or 1 minute.

You can count in 60s to work out how many seconds there are in each number of minutes.

For example:

If you know these times, you can use them to break a duration into minutes and seconds.

For example, you could think of 65 seconds as 60 + 5 seconds, which is the same as 1 minute 5 seconds.

Or, 130 seconds as 120 + 10 seconds, which is the same as 2 minutes 10 seconds.

How many seconds are there in 5 minutes, 37 seconds?

Two friends run a lap of a playing field.

It takes Sally 168 seconds to run all the way round. Maya runs round in 2 minutes, 58 seconds. Who was quickest?