For kids
Learn to tell the time 🕒
A trainer for kids: look at the clock with hands and answer three questions – what hour it is, what that is in the evening and how many minutes. Right answers earn stars.
How to teach a child to tell the time
- The short red hand shows the hours, the long blue one the minutes.
- First find the hour by the short hand, then count the minutes: every number on the dial is 5 minutes.
- When the short hand is between two numbers, the hour is the number it has already passed: between 3 and 4 it is still 3 o'clock.
- The afternoon time is the hour plus 12: 3 in the afternoon is 15:00, 8 in the evening is 20:00. But 12 at night is 0:00 – a new day starts at midnight.
- A wrong answer is no problem: try another one; a new clock comes after three right answers.
How the task works
The clock always shows an hour sharp, a quarter past, half past or a quarter to: the minute hand is on 12, 3, 6 or 9. Children usually start learning the time with these positions. The hour hand moves like on a real clock – at half past it is already halfway to the next number.
There are three questions: what hour the short hand shows, how to write that time in the afternoon (as on a digital clock and in timetables) and how many minutes the long hand shows. Each question has four answers to choose from; three right answers bring a star and a new clock.
Half past, quarter past, quarter to
English names the time after the hour that has passed: half past three is 3:30. Estonian and Russian name it after the coming hour – “pool neli”, literally “half four”, is 3:30 too. That helps the children who learn the time in an Estonian school:
| On the clock | In English | In Estonian |
|---|---|---|
| 3:00 | three o'clock | kell on kolm |
| 3:15 | quarter past three | kell on veerand neli |
| 3:30 | half past three | kell on pool neli |
| 3:45 | quarter to four | kell on kolmveerand neli |
Frequently asked questions
At what age should children learn to tell the time?
Usually at 6–7, when a child knows the numbers up to 12 and can count in fives up to 60. If counting in fives is still hard, start with the first question – the hours by the short hand.
Why add 12?
An analog clock has 12 numbers, but a day has 24 hours. Timetables, digital clocks and phones write the afternoon time like this: 15:00 instead of 3 pm, 20:00 instead of 8 pm. Only midnight is written as 0:00, not 24:00 – a new day starts with it.
Do I need to sign up?
No. The trainer is free and works in the browser on a computer, a tablet and a phone.
Are the stars saved?
Yes, in the browser on this device – nothing is sent to the server, so another phone or another browser has stars of its own. But saving does not work everywhere: in incognito mode and when sites may not store data, the stars are gone once the page is closed; clearing the browsing history erases them, and Safari on iPhone and iPad may delete them if the site is not opened for a long time.
For counting there is a separate math trainer – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with numbers up to 10, 20 and 100.