Telling time on a clock

I can say which hand tells the hour.

Two hands read the same twelve numerals in two different ways, so every reading starts with deciding which hand you are looking at.

The child reads the hour off the short hand with a finger on it, and can say which numeral changed jobs when the hands were traded.

First lesson. Set a classroom clock to twenty past four and ask what time it is. Take every answer offered, including four twenty and twenty past eight, and write them all up.

The book never prints a clock for a reader to look at. It prints sentences about where two hands point, and Mom's rhyme supplies the rule that sorts them out.

Children lay the two hands on a paper face longest first, chant the rhyme touching the short hand on the word hour, then set the clock as the book's sentence describes and say the hour with a finger on the hand that gave it.

Two drawn clocks side by side, one as written and one with the hands traded, and a spoken statement of which numeral changed jobs.

Each pair finishes the frame aloud for both clocks — the short hand is on ___, so the hour is ___ — and a partner who hears the wrong hand named answers try the other hand rather than giving the time.

I can set and read any o'clock time.

With the long hand parked on the twelve, the short hand alone says the time, and the written form always ends in two zeros for the same reason.

The child sets all five of the story's hours, moving both hands themselves and returning the long hand to the twelve before each reading.

Yesterday both hands moved and the reading changed. Today one hand is parked, so the other one can be studied on its own.

The story calls out the hour more than a dozen times as IQ crosses his school day, and once it stops and reads a face hand by hand: the big hand on the 12, the small hand on the 1.

Children turn both hands right round once, point out which tells hours and which minutes, then park the long hand on the twelve and walk the short hand from numeral to numeral, saying the hour at each stop.

Five hours from the story set and held up, and a strip carrying each one written in clock numbers in the order the story reaches them.

Children read their finished strip aloud touching each line, and check that two zeros sit after every colon because the long hand never left the twelve.

I can count by fives round the face and say the minutes.

The numerals carry a second set of numbers. Labelling each one with its minute is what turns twelve numerals into sixty minutes.

The child labels every numeral with its minute and can carry the five-count on from a numeral the teacher names rather than from the twelve.

The hours are settled. Today the other hand gets a scale of its own, and it is not the one printed on the face.

A single line carries the rule, and Max has to use it three times, running the count from the twelve round to the six before he can name a time.

Children put a finger on the twelve and count by fives right round to sixty, one touch per number word, three times over — slowly, at speaking pace, and then with no help from the other hand — before dealing the minute cards beside their numerals.

A labelled face, checked by counting aloud and lifting each card as its number is said.

The teacher names a numeral and children start the five-count there instead of at the twelve, carry it on to the long hand and say only the number they land on, while a partner checks by counting from the twelve.

I can read and write a time that is not on the hour.

Once the long hand leaves the twelve the short hand stops sitting on a numeral, and that is not a mistake — it is what a time between two hours looks like.

The child sets both of the story's times, puts the short hand between the right two numerals, and can say why it will not sit on one.

The minutes now have a scale. Today the hour hand has to move off its numeral to match.

Twice the story leaves the hour behind, at the name cards in the middle of the morning and at the bell that sends everyone home.

Children walk the long hand from the twelve one numeral at a time saying the minutes, stop where a partner says stop and report the minutes past, then find half past ten and place the short hand where it has to go.

Both of the story's times set and written in clock numbers, with the short hand between numerals on each.

Pairs trade clocks without a word about the time, read the other pair's face, write down what they read, and settle any disagreement by walking the fives from the twelve together.

I can say the same time three different ways.

Half past and quarter after are names for counts a child has already made. They are not extra facts to learn, and the chart says all three names for one time.

The child produces all three names for a time they have set, counting by fives before writing the minutes-after name.

The class can now read a face and write it. Today one face gets three different sentences said about it.

A closing chart says one single time three different ways, and the story before it shows exactly what it costs a child to know only one of them.

Children set the clock to half past two, hunt through the name cards for every card that describes it, lay the three they find beneath the clock and read them in a row, saying which card left over describes a different clock and which one.

A recording sheet with one clock face and all three names filled in, the minutes-after name reached by counting fives.

Pairs swap sheets, set their own clock to the other pair's drawn time, test each of the three names against it, and cross out only a name the clock cannot show — saying which hand disagrees with it.

I can turn a written time into two hand positions.

A written time is two numbers doing different jobs. The left half names an hour and the right half counts minutes, and a reader has to know which is which before either means anything.

The child sets both hands from the two halves of a folded card and says the time two ways.

Every time so far has been read off a face. Today the times arrive as numerals with no face at all.

The book never draws a clock. It writes nineteen times as numerals across four days and expects a reader to know what each half is doing.

Children fold the card reading 10.30 along the point, lay the two halves apart and say which half names an hour and which counts minutes, then set the short hand from the left half and count the right half round in fives.

Five of the trip's written times turned into set faces, each checked by a partner against the two halves of its card.

For each clock they have set, children finish two frames aloud — the hour is ___ and it is ___ minutes past, and then half past ___ or ___ o'clock — answering from the clock rather than from the card.

I can count how many minutes there are between two times.

A clock answers two questions: what time is it, and how long until. The second one is a walk between two marks, counted rather than subtracted.

The child records all four gaps and can say which one is the odd size and by how many minutes.

The class can read any time now. Today two times are put on one face and the space between them gets measured.

Three times on this trip the family has exactly half an hour between one clock time and the next fixed thing, and the book never adds one of them up.

Children put a red counter where the taxi was due and a blue counter where the show begins, say which the long hand reaches first, then walk the hand from red to blue saying five, ten, fifteen, one number word per five-minute mark.

A strip carrying four counted gaps — the taxi, Corndale, the wedding morning and the Herdville bus.

Children read their four counts aloud in order, say the number three of them share, say which one is different and say how many minutes shorter it is.

I can say whether something was early, on time or late, and by how much.

Late is not a feeling about a story. It is what two faces say when you hold them beside each other, and the judgement has to carry the count between them.

The child says the frame with a number in it — they said ___, it was really ___, so they were ___ — and can name the two faces it came from.

Yesterday's gaps were between a time and a plan. Today one face is the plan and the other is what happened.

This book almost never says how late anyone was. It says a word instead and leaves a reader to work out what the word does to a clock: on schedule, behind schedule, late, on time.

Children read the promise strip and set the left clock to the time in it, then read the second strip and set the right clock beside it — leaving the taxi's face blank with a word card on it, because the book gives that stop no time at all.

Two pairs of faces, one pair with a counted gap and one with a word card where a time should be, each with the book's own judgement word chosen for it.

Children finish the frame aloud for each stop, and a partner who hears a judgement with no number in it answers by asking which two faces it came from.