Teach Kids How To Read A Clock (Tell Time Games)

These fun telling time games are the perfect way for kids to gather the skills they need to learn to tell time with a traditional clock or watch analog clock, a clock that shows the time with hands on a dial.

Here at Kids Activities Blog, we always prefer learning through games and hands-on telling time activities!  Playing with time is so much fun.

We have published a lot of popular learning games, but this tell time post has been sharing thousands of times through the years as it was named by Pinterest as one of the Top 20 Pins of 2013 for Education and Classroom Ideas.  We are absolutely giddy and hope you will share it too!

How To Tell Time On A Clock

First it might be best to talk about how to tell the time of day by looking at a clock face that isn’t digital but an analogue clock.

Look at the red clock and read the time. The hour hand isn’t quite to 12, the minute hand is resting on the 11 and the seconds hand is on the 3 making it 11:55 and 15 seconds.

If any of that doesn’t make sense, keep reading! We are going to explore everything you need to tell time on a clock.

1. Hour Hand on a Clock

The shortest, thickest slowest moving hand on a clock is the little hand or hour hand that points to what hour of the day it is or just passed by pointing to the large numbers 1-12 on the clock face.

• It takes this small hand an hour to move from big number to big number.
• When it has made its way all around the clock, 12 hours have passed.
• When an hour hand is in between numbers, it is BETWEEN those two hours. For instance, if the hour hand was between 2 & 3, it is 2-something. When it passes the 3, it will be 3-something.

2. Minutes Hand on a Clock

The longer, thick moving hand on a clock is the big hand or minute hand that moves every minute of the day around the clock pointing to the hash marks that represent the 60 minutes in an hour.

• The minute hand moves every minute. Some clock faces have ticks or small lines in between the big numbers which represent one minute.
• Each time the minute hand passes a large number (1-12), 5 minutes has passed.
• In the example above, you can see that the minute hand is pointing at the 6. Since it passed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and now 6 (a total of 6 numbers) and 6 x 5 = 30. So it is 2:30.
• Skip counting by 5s is an important skill for reading a clock.
• Note: The hour hand has slowly moved 1/2 way between the 2 & 3 since we are half way through the hour!

Related: More skip counting learning fun from Kids Activities Blog

3. Seconds Hand on a Clock

The longer, thinnest fastest moving hand (not every clock has one) is the seconds hand which makes an entire revolution of the clock every minute.

• The seconds hand goes all the way around the clock every minute!
• Each of the ticks on the side of the clock between the numbers represents 1 second.
• Each of the big numbers 1-12 represent 5 seconds has passed.
• In the example above, the red seconds hand is on the 12 meaning no seconds have passed since the new minute. In this picture, it is exactly 2:30.

Now let’s get some practice telling time on a clock by playing some fun telling time games…

Fun & Easy Telling Time Games for Kids

These Tell Time games are sure to make your day a little more fun for your little ones.  The challenge with learning to tell times is kids have to be familiar with:

• Numbers 1-12 & 0-60
• Skip counting by 5’s, 10’s & 15’s
• Concept of time – seconds, minutes, hours…
• Ability to identify, calculate and then express

When you think about it, time is complicated!  It is something that we use so often throughout the day that we might not even think about all the moving pieces that come together to allow us to tell time and say it so someone else understands what we are talking about.

Kids Activities Blog is excited to share with you these fun telling time activities to do today to help you child understand the concept of time.

Activities and Games to Teach Telling Time on A Clock

Here are 10 of the ideas we’ve found to help us with our Tuesday math & extra telling time learning…

1. Make a playdough globe to introduce time zones.  

As you find hours on your “clock”, put a stick into your globe about the area that you think it would be that time.   Discuss how time is different in different places.   Thanks to A Little Learning for inspiring this earth activity – they used things they are thankful for on their “sticks”.

2. Count down to a big event using clocks.

Countdown to a big event like New Years Eve using clocks to introduce the countdown.   Hoosier Homemade made a bag of treats that her kids could open up, one on each hour as they counted down to midnight.   This would be a great “telling time” activity for a long road-trip too!

3. Have kids wear a watch.  

The act of wearing a watch has helped give my children a concept of time pretty quickly.   I love the (affiliate links present in this article) “Time Teaching” watches.   These have the hours and the minutes on the face to help your child learn to differentiate between the hours and minutes.  It is funny but most kids don’t get used to wearing a watch these days because all the adults around them have their phone in hand with a digital clock.

4. Make a giant clock with kids as the “hands”.

Make a giant clock outside on your driveway like the kids over at Who Would Have Thought It.   They used their bodies to make the time.   What fun to see the time change…looks like a blast!

Interactive Tell Time Games

5. Play with paper plate clocks.

I first saw a version of the clock pictured above at Mrs. Nielsen’s 2nd grade.   She cut flaps into her paper plate that she could lift the hour and show her kids the minutes.   Brilliant!   We had to make our own paper plate clock (pictured above).   The kids love it.

6. Use printable clock worksheets.

Here is a terrific telling time worksheet that we have used to help our kids diagram time.   Put it in a page protector and use with dry erase markers to ask questions like:

• What time did you eat breakfast this morning?
• What time is one hour earlier than breakfast?
• When is bedtime?
• What time do you get up in the morning?
• What time do we leave for school?

7. Practice skip counting.

The part that is the hardest for my kiddos is learning the hour “number” with the minuets – ex: 8 = 40 minuets.   Skip counting has really helped them figure it out!   SchoolHouse Rock has a fun song where they skip count as fast as they can their 5’s.   The kids love counting & singing along.

Sing your skip counting with SchoolHouse Rock

8. Make a clock wall for kids.

We used cardboard boxes to create clocks with the common events of our day on the face.    

Our daily events included:

• morning snack time
• time they can get up from naps
• time that Daddy is home from work
• bedtime

This helps my toddlers know to match the time.  For example, “You can’t get up from quiet time until 4pm, when the clock looks like this (pointing to the correct time)”.

9. Work with different types of time notation.  

Help your child realize that time is documented in many formats.   Teach Mama has a great collection of tell time on a clock worksheets and lesson plans to help your child see the big picture.

10. Have a telling time race.

I remember as a child in classes, I loved the wipe-board activities.   This is a board that you can purchase to have time-telling races with each other.

How To Tell Time as Part of Hands-on Math

As part of our home learning schedule, we try to focus on one area of “extra” hands-on math skills each school day.  Here is our schedule to include telling time in addition to our regular math worksheets and math homework:

• Mondays: Play with more/less statements — these can get really silly & fun!
• Tuesdays: Hands-on clock practice and talking through telling time to each other.
• Wednesdays:  Is backwards day!  We count backwards as we drive places, wait in lines, sit at the table and take a bath!
• Thursdays:  All about money.  We count money and play store games.
• Fridays:  Fun & play with math – my kids’ favorite play time choice is Lego math or some building activity.

Favorite Practice Clocks for Telling Time

There are a bunch of resources out there for home and in the classroom to help kids learn how to tell time on a clock. Here are several of my favorites.

Telling time faq

This article contains affiliate links.

• Melissa & Doug Shape Sorting Clock Wooden Educational Toy for learning time telling skills.
• This Montessori Wooden Toys Kids Clock is a wooden toy for 3 year olds and up providing a unique learning toy that teaches about time telling, seasons, months and days of the week.
• This Learn to Tell Time Toy is a Wooden educational teaching clock and turns learning into a game with counting skills and brain development – great for homeschool and classroom tactile learning concepts.

More Time, Clock & Schedule Fun from Kids Activities Blog

• We love this idea for a routine clock, a visual reminder of a kids schedule.  You can easily make this school clock that could be used for all sorts of different kid routines.
• We talked about counting down to a special event…here is a Christmas countdown clock to keep kids anticipating AND counting!
• Need help keeping track of a Kindergarten homeschool schedule?  Check out these ideas for things that really work!
• We have some mom-tested, kid-tested kids schedule ideas that really work in the real world.
• And if you have a preschooler at home, check out our easy to follow preschool schedule.
• Don’t miss our cool math games for kids of all ages.
• Check out this Map game that helps children learn directions!

Related: How to read a thermometer is fun with this printable, craft & learning activity!