Digital clocks are everywhere. On your computer, on the microwave, and even on your stove!
The stove says the time is seven thirty p.m.
How can you tell?
The first number tells you the hour. The last 2 numbers tell you the minutes.
Remember:
There are 24 hours in each day.
There are 60 minutes in each hour.
Take a look at the digital clock again.
Now it's eight o'clock, or eight p.m.
The first number tells you that the current hour is 8. The last 2 numbers tell you that zero minutes have gone by after 8.
:00 means zero minutes after 8. We read it as o'clock.
People also call it the top of the hour.
🌞 There are 24 hours in each day.
The first 12 hours are morning or a.m.
The second 12 hours are the afternoon and evening. It's also known as p.m.
Tip: a.m. stands for ante meridiem in Latin, which is a really old language.
Ante means before and meridiem means noon, or midday.
So a.m. just means before noon in Latin!
p.m. stands for post meridiem, which means after noon in Latin.
Digital clocks are super handy. They can tell you if it's a.m. or p.m.
Take a look at these two digital clocks.
One says 7:15 a.m., the other says 7:15 p.m.
🤓 Tip: You'll see both a.m. and AM. They mean the same thing. a.m. is more correct when writing, but digital clocks mostly use AM and PM because they're easier to read far away.
The clock that says 7:15 a.m. tells you that it's morning.
Time to wake up! 🌞
The clock that says 7:15 p.m. tells you that it's evening.
Time for dinner! 🍔
Not all countries use 12-hour clocks. Many parts of the world, like Europe, use 24-hour digital clocks!
The 24-hour clock shows how many hours and minutes have passed since midnight.
It has no a.m. or p.m.!
The hours start at zero and go through 23.
Midnight is also called the zero hour.
This is a 24-hour digital clock.
👉'HH' is the hours and 'MM' is the minutes.
Tip: With 24-hour time, you can omit the colon (:) to write time as HHMM.
You eat lunch at 1400 hours and play at 1545 hours.
Sometimes military people in the US say times like this. You might hear it in movies too.
Tip: To turn a 24-hour time into a 12-hour time, if the hour is greater than 12, just subtract 12 and make it p.m.
So 14:00 is the same as 2:00 p.m. 😺
Great job! Now, you know how to read digital clocks.
Start your practice below.