Imagine your friend asks you:
Can we play at 4:00 p.m.?
4:00 p.m. is a time in the day.
A day is the time between sunrises.🌞
Time is the part of the day we're in.
We tell the time in hours, minutes, and seconds.
There are 24 hours in each day.
Hours are pretty long, so to make life more convenient, we also break down hours into minutes.
There are 60 minutes in every hour.
There are 60 seconds in every minute!
Memorize those. 👍
Do you know why there are 24 hours between sunrises, and why there are sunsets? 🤔
👉 Because planet Earth is always spinning around the sun! It looks kind of like this:
The sun shines on the planet and makes daylight.
Do you see how half of the planet facing the sun is bright?
The other half has nighttime. 🌙
Most people who speak English tell time like this:
😺 Let's learn about each part.
The Hour is always between 1 and 12.
👉 One hour after 12:00, it becomes 1:00 again!
But wait, aren't there 24 hours in the day? Yes!
👉 That's why we need a.m and p.m.
If you see a.m., it means the first half of the day.
p.m means the second half of the day.
Tip: If you see AM or PM, it means the same thing as a.m. and p.m. Clocks sometimes use the capitalized AM and PM, but a.m. and p.m. are more correct when writing.
A.M. stands for Ante Meridiem in Latin, a very old language.
In Latin, "ante" means before. "Meridiem" means noon.
So A.M. just means before noon! 🤯😂
P.M. stands for Post Meridiem, which means after noon in Latin.
One hour is really long. So to make life easier for everyone, we also tell time with minutes! 😺
There are 60 minutes in every hour!
Minutes on a clock are always between 0 and 59.
Do you see how the hour goes up after 1:59?
What time do you think it is after 2:59 a.m?
That's right! 3:00 a.m.
You can watch a movie in about 2 hours. 🎥
You can listen to a song in about 3 minutes. 🎤
You can blink in about 1 second. 👀
Hours are longer than minutes. Minutes are longer than seconds.
Tip: Most clocks don't show the seconds within a minute, but some do.
Sometimes people say:
It's 3 O'clock
3 O'clock is the same as saying 3:00.
O'clock means the minutes are 00. People also call this the top of the hour.
Here's where time gets a little weird. What do you think comes after 11:59 a.m.?
It's NOT 12:00 a.m. Take a look:
After 11:59 a.m. is 12:00 p.m!
12:00 p.m. is also called noon. It's when most people eat lunch.
12:00 p.m. is the start of the second half of the day.
👉 After 12:00 p.m. comes 1:00 p.m.!
At 12:00 p.m. the sun is high in the sky. It's hot and bright outside! 🌞
What do you think comes after 11:59 p.m.? 🤔
Hint: 11:59 p.m. is the last minute of the second half of the day.
That's right! After 11:59 p.m, we switch over to 12:00 a.m.
12:00 a.m. is the start of a new day!
Imagine it's 11:59 p.m. the day before your birthday. In 1 minute, at 12:00 a.m. it will be your birthday! 🎉
If 12:00 p.m. (noon) is bright, what do you think 12:00 a.m. is?
That's right! 12:00 a.m. is dark. It's called midnight. You're probably asleep at midnight.
What comes 1 hour after 12:00 a.m.? 🤔
👉 That's right! It's 1:00 a.m.
Let's look at some more example times.
You might wake up at 7:00 a.m, and go to school at 8:00 a.m.
Around 12:00 p.m. most people eat lunch. This is called noon.
At noon, it's hot and bright outside! It's when your part of the planet is facing the sun most.
3 hours after eating lunch, you come back home from school. It's 3:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. you eat dinner. At 9:00 p.m. you go to bed.
And the next day you wake up at 7:00 a.m. again!
To tell the time, you'll need a clock.
Your house might have 2 types of clocks: A digital clock and an analog clock. They both use hours and minutes to tell the time.
A digital clock uses numbers to show the hour and the minutes.
An analog clock uses moving hands that point at the hour and the minutes.
The short hand is the hour hand. It points to the numbers inside the clock to tell you the hour.
The hour hand points to a little after 3 o'clock.
The long hand helps us figure out the exact minutes of the hour.
The long minute hand points to the 60 tick marks on the outside of a clock.
The long minute hand shows us that 5 minutes have gone by since the top of the hour.
The long minute hand rotates all the way around the clock once very hour.
Tip: analog clocks don't show a.m. or p.m. You just have to know which half of the day you're in. 🧐
We'll learn more about analog clocks in the next lessons.
Congratulations 🎉 You just learned the basics of telling time.
Now, start the practice below. It'll help you master the basics of telling time.