Telling the time to the nearest minute

When you look at an analogue clock, you see 12 numbers.

There is a long minute hand and a short hour hand.

Depending where they point, you can work out what the time is.

Learn more about telling the time to the nearest minute with this interactive activity and then put your knowledge to the test with a quiz.

You can use clocks to tell the time to the nearest minute.

To do that, you have to look closely at where the minute hand (the long hand) is pointing.

You also need to remember how many minutes 'past' or 'to' each of the numbers on the clock shows. You can count in fives to help do this.

You then need to have a look at the number of small marks that the minute hand has passed.

On the clock below, the minute hand is pointing to two minutes past the 2 hour marker.

Each number on the clock represents 5 minutes. So this clock shows the minute hand has reached '12 minutes past' the hour.

Therefore, the time on this clock is '12 minutes past 4'.

On the next clock, you can see the time is '10 minutes to 5 o'clock'.

Example 2

Example 3