What order should telling the time be taught in?

O’clock, half past, quarter past and to, five minutes, then any minute. Quarter to is the hard step because it names the hour the hour hand has not reached.

Why is my child confidently an hour out?

The hour hand. At half past three it sits between 3 and 4 and children read the nearest number. Ask which number it has passed. These clocks move the hour hand proportionally, as a real clock does.

What is the difference between reading and drawing?

Reading interprets a picture; drawing produces one, which forces the child to place the hour hand proportionally. Drawing is considerably harder.

Should I teach digital or analogue first?

Analogue first. It makes the structure of time visible, whereas digital gives no picture of how far through the hour you are.

Do I get an answer key?

Yes, as a second sheet. On drawing sheets it shows the correctly positioned hands.

Maths

Telling Time Worksheets

Printable clock practice at any level, from o’clock to any minute. Read the clock and write the time, draw the hands onto a blank face, or match clocks to times. Every sheet can come with an answer key on a second page.

Read, draw or match5 difficulty levelsAnswer keyPDF · SVG

Exercise

What to practise

Times to use

Clocks

Clock face

Clock size22mm

Minute numbersSmall numbers outside the face, counting in fives.

Answer key format

Include answer keyAdds a second sheet with the answers filled in.

Page

Name and date

Page size

Orientation

Site name on the sheetSmall logo and address in the bottom-left corner. Switch off for a completely clean page.

2 pages

Preview

Preview scaled down · prints true size at 100%

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Four steps

How to make a telling time worksheet

1
Pick the exercise
Reading first; drawing is considerably harder.
2
Choose the level
Start at o'clock and add one step at a time.
3
Set the clock size
Larger faces are easier to read and to draw on.
4
Print with the key
The answer key prints as a second sheet.

The hour hand is the whole difficulty

Nearly every mistake in telling the time comes back to the hour hand. It moves continuously, so for most of the hour it points at no number at all, and a child reading the nearest numeral will be an hour out for the second half of every hour.

The fix is a question rather than a rule: which number has it gone past? That works at every level and never needs unlearning. It is also why the clocks here place the hour hand proportionally rather than parking it on the numeral, which is a surprisingly common flaw in printed worksheets and actively teaches the wrong thing.

A sensible order

Step	Idea being added	Typical age
O’clock	The hour hand names the hour	5 to 6
Half past	The minute hand halfway round	5 to 6
Quarter past	Quarters of a circle	6 to 7
Quarter to	Counting backwards to the next hour	6 to 7
Five minutes	Counting in fives around the face	7 to 8
Any minute	Minute ticks between the numerals	8+

Why quarter to is the hard one

Every earlier step names the hour the hand has passed. Quarter to names the hour it is heading towards, which reverses the rule a child has just learned. It is worth teaching explicitly rather than hoping it is absorbed, and worth a sheet of its own.

Related printables

Number tracing covers writing the digits these sheets assume, the math worksheet generator handles addition and subtraction, and the printable calendar covers the other half of telling time, which is days and dates.

Answers

Frequently asked questions

O’clock first, then half past, then quarter past and quarter to, then five-minute intervals, then any minute. Each step adds one idea rather than several, and the jump people underestimate is quarter to, because it is the first time the answer names the hour the hour hand has not reached yet.

Almost always the hour hand. At half past three it sits halfway between the 3 and the 4, and a child reading the nearest number says four. It is worth pointing at the hour hand and asking which number it has *passed*, rather than which it is closest to. Many printed worksheets make this worse by drawing the hour hand exactly on the numeral, which is simply wrong; the clocks here move it proportionally.

They are separate skills and drawing is much harder. Reading only asks a child to interpret a picture. Drawing asks them to produce one, which means deciding how far round the hour hand should be, and that is where the proportional movement of the hour hand becomes unavoidable rather than something they can read past.

Analogue, even though digital is what most clocks in a child’s life show. Analogue makes the structure of time visible: you can see that twenty past is a third of the way round, and that quarter to is nearly there. Digital gives no such picture, and children who learn it first often read 3:45 fluently without any sense of how close that is to four o’clock.

Yes, as a second sheet so the worksheet can be handed out on its own. On the drawing sheets the key shows the correctly positioned hands, which is the part that is genuinely hard to check by eye.

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