Second Grade · Math · week 23

Telling time to 5 minutes

Tell and write time to the nearest 5 minutes using analog clocks.

A clock face has 12 big numbers but 60 small tick marks -- one for every minute. Each big number stands for 5 minutes: skip count by 5 around the clock to find the minutes.

The short hand shows the hour. The long minute hand points to a number, and that number's skip-count-by-5 value tells you the minutes.

📋 For the teacher
Teach it (10–15 min):
  • Use a real analog clock, or a paper plate clock with movable hands -- reading a picture is much harder than moving real hands.
  • Have them skip count out loud around the clock face by 5s before ever reading a specific time.
  • Cover the hour hand and ask only for minutes, then cover the minute hand and ask only for the hour -- isolate the two skills.
  • Connect back to skip-counting-by-5 practice from earlier in the year -- it is the same skill in a new place.
Talk about it:
  • Why does each number on the clock face stand for 5 minutes instead of 1?
  • How do you find the minutes just by looking at where the long hand points?
  • What time is it right now, to the nearest 5 minutes?

Mastery looks like: They read and write time to the nearest 5 minutes from an analog clock accurately.

Common stumbles: Counting the minute hand position by ones instead of skip counting by 5; mixing up which hand is hours and which is minutes.

Homework for this lessonType it, write it with a stylus, or print it for pencil & paper.open →
Records attendance + 15 min of Math for this learner.
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