Telling Time to Five Minutes
Basics on the topic Telling Time to Five Minutes
Telling Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes
How can you tell time using an analog clock? In this lesson we learn about skip counting as a strategy to help read analog clocks. Below we’ll explore more on how you can use what you know about skip counting and clocks to learn about how to tell time to the five minutes.
The Clock – Hour and Minute Hands
When telling time to five minutes with an analog clock, we can use the arrows, often called hands, to help us figure out which is the hour and which is the minute on the clock. The hour hand is the shorter arrow, you might remember this because the word hour is short. 
While the minute hand is the longer arrow on the clock, you might remember this because the word minute is longer than the word hour.
Skip Counting – A Useful Method
Now that we’ve learned a bit about how to identify, or find the hour and minute hand, let’s learn how to read a clock using skip counting. What is skip counting? Skip counting is when you count forward by a specific amount. You can skip count forward by fives, tens, even hundreds. In this video we’re skip-counting by fives. Which means that we will skip count forward by five for every number that we see shown on the analog clock. This is also called telling time in a five minute interval.
Telling Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes – Example
Below is an example of an analog clock. Can you use what you’ve learned about skip counting and identifying the hour and minute hand to read, or, tell what time it is?
Start by finding the hour, you can do this by looking at the last number the hour hand has passed. The last number the hour hand passed here was one, so the hour is one. Next find the minute by skip-counting forward. In this video we skip-counted forward by fives, which means we count forward by five for each number represented on the analog clock. This can be helpful because each hour is shown five minutes apart on an analog clock. If we skip count by we can find the time to the nearest five minutes is 1:20. Did you also get that time? If not, take a look at the video again!
Telling Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes – Summary
Remember when telling time to the nearest five minutes you should complete the following tasks in three steps:
| Steps | task |
|---|---|
| Step one: | Find the hour by looking at what number the hour hand last passed. |
| Step two: | Find the minute by skip-counting. |
| Step three: | Put the hour and minute together to find the time. |
Telling Time to the Nearest 5 Minutes – Additional Practice
Want more practice? At the end of the video, there are activities, such as exercises and games for continued practice of telling time to the nearest five minutes as well as worksheets with which you can exercise telling time to the nearest 5 minutes.
Transcript Telling Time to Five Minutes
Zuri and Freddie on behalf of the International Animals of Space Organization thank you for accepting the space exploration project. You should have received the tasks already, it's very important that you complete each task on time. I'll see you this afternoon for the video log check in. Good luck! "Let's take a look at the tasks!" "Do you think we'll see any aliens? I hope we see aliens!" "We have a problem though, I don't know how to use these clocks, they aren't like the ones I have at home." "Oh it's not that hard, we can skip count by fives to help us!" Telling Time to Five Minutes. Let's take a look at what Zuri and Freddie need to complete today. Zuri and Freddie need to start collecting space dust, but at what time? How can you read an analog clock to know the time? One way is, that we can skip count, or count forward by fives. Start by finding the hour. We can do this by finding the last number the short hand, or the hour hand last passed. Here the last number the hour hand passed was twelve, so the hour is twelve. Then skip count or count forward by fives to the minute hand, or the long hand. When we skip count on an analog clock we make hops around the clock, and every number we land on stands for five minutes. Count out loud with us! five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five. We skip counted by fives to the minute hand and got to forty-five so the minute is forty-five. If we put the hour and minute together we get the time, 12:45. After that, Zuri and Freddie need to polish the rings on Saturn. Let’s find out what time it is on the schedule by skip counting with fives. Start by finding the hour. Can you find the last number the hour hand passed? The hour is one. Then we can skip count by fives to get the minute. Skip count with me! Five, ten, fifteen, twenty. So the minute is twenty! If we put the hour and minute together our time is 1:20. Now Zuri and Freddie need to rearrange the stars to make a new constellation, but at what time? Remember, to start by finding the hour first by looking at the last number the hour hand past: What is the hour shown here? The hour is two. What about the minute? Let's skip count by fives to find the minute. What minute did you get to? If we skip count by fives we get the minute twenty-five. Let's put the hour and minute together, our time is 2:25. Zuri and Freddie are very busy in space, and need to count how many moons there are around Jupiter. What time do Zuri and Freddie need to do that? Remember to start by finding the hour. Which hour did you find? Next, skip count by fives to get to the minute hand. Then put the hour and minute together. What time did you get? The hour is three and the minute is fifty, so the time is 3:50 Last but not least Zuri and Freddie need to check in with the space commander with their walkie-talkies. Before we check in with the space commander, let's summarize. Remember when telling time to five minutes you start by finding the hour, or the last number the short hand has passed. Then you can find the minutes by skip counting or counting forward by fives. Once you have the hour and minute, you can put them together to find the time. "So, how was the mission? Did you see anything unusual?" "Everyone thinks Jupiter has 53 moons, but I counted 79!" "We completed everything on the list. It was pretty normal" "I was kind of hoping we'd see some aliens or something."
