Maths
Elapsed Time Worksheets
Free printable elapsed time practice. Each question shows a start clock and an end clock, with a box for the time between them. Choose whole hours to begin with and work down to any minute. Answer key included.
Four steps
How to practise elapsed time
- 1
Start with whole hours
No minute arithmetic until the idea is secure.
- 2
Count on, do not subtract
Whole hours first, then the minutes.
- 3
Practise crossing the hour
It is the step that causes almost all the errors.
- 4
Then reduce the granularity
Half hours, quarters, five minutes, any minute.
Count on, do not subtract
Elapsed time is the point where telling the time becomes arithmetic, and it is where a reasonable-looking method fails badly. Time is base sixty. A child who lines up 5:15 and 2:40 and subtracts in columns gets 3:-25, and from there either invents a rule or decides they cannot do it.
Counting on avoids the whole problem. Two hours from 2:40 reaches 4:40. Thirty-five minutes more reaches 5:15. Two hours thirty-five, with nothing borrowed and nothing to remember.
Crossing the hour is the hard part
From 2:50 to 3:10 is twenty minutes, and almost every child finds that surprising the first time, because the minute figure goes down. Everything they know says later means bigger. It is worth practising deliberately rather than waiting for it to appear at random, and the five-minute and any-minute settings here produce it often.
A sensible order
| Step | What is being added |
|---|---|
| Whole hours | The idea of a gap, with no minute arithmetic at all |
| Half hours | Halves, and the first hour crossings |
| Quarters | Quarter past and quarter to inside a gap |
| Five minutes | Counting on in fives around the face |
| Any minute | Full minute arithmetic across the hour |
Related printables
Telling the time covers reading and drawing clock faces, which has to be automatic before elapsed time makes sense. The math worksheet generator covers the addition underneath, and the printable calendar covers elapsed time over days.
Answers