Knowledge Explorer lesson
Telling Time: Hours and Half Hours
How do you read a clock?
An analog clock has a short hand and a long hand. The short hand is the hour hand. The long hand is the minute hand.
When the minute hand points straight up at the 12, it is exactly on the hour. If the hour hand points to the 3, it is 3 o'clock, written 3:00.
When the minute hand points straight down at the 6, it is half past the hour. Half an hour is 30 minutes, so half past 3 is written 3:30. At half past, the hour hand is halfway between two numbers.
A digital clock shows time with numbers only: the hour, a colon (:), and then the minutes.
What you will learn
- Tell which clock hand shows the hour and which shows the minutes
- Read and write time to the hour and half hour on analog and digital clocks
Key facts
- The short hand shows the hour. The long hand shows the minutes.
- There are 60 minutes in 1 hour.
- Half an hour is 30 minutes.
- When the minute hand points to 12, it is o'clock. When it points to 6, it is half past.