Year 2 Teaching Sequence autumn M2 – Tell the time to the quarter of the hour and use units of time (four days)
Prerequisites:
 Use vocabulary related to time; read the time to the hour and the half hour; order days of the week and months (see
Year 1 teaching sequences M6 and M7 and oral and mental starter bank M2)
 Find halves and quarters of shapes by folding (see Year 1 spring teaching sequence 12 and oral and mental starter bank
M2)
Overview of progression:
Children learn about the relationships between seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and years. They use stopwatches and
sand timers to time events and also how many actions they can repeat in one minute, to gain a sense of a minute. Children
make sand and water clocks. The quarter of an hour is introduced and children order clocks including those showing ‘quarter
past’. Children learn how ‘half past’ and ‘o’clock’ times are displayed on digital clocks.
Note that children learn to read the time to the half hour on both analogue and digital clocks, but will learn to tell the time
to the quarter of the hour on digital clocks later in the year once they are familiar with finding quarters of numbers. Also
note that this sequence introduces quarter past and quarter to, but focuses on quarter past. Children will practise reading
‘quarter to’ times in Teaching Sequence M5. Because of their experiences outside of school, many children may be more
familiar with digital clocks than with analogue clocks but not understand how the times shown fit between the hours. Telling
the time is an area of mathematics where children's attainment can be unpredictable and often unrelated to their
attainment in other areas of mathematics!
Note that the timing activities in session one are to give children experience of a minute, not to see how fast they can
carry out the activities!
Watch out for children who think that 2:50 is equivalent to half past 2 as they are halving 100 rather than 60.
Watch out for children who confuse the big and small hands.
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days
Objectives:
 Use units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks) and know the relationships between them
 Read the time to the quarter of an hour on digital and analogue clocks
 Begin to identify time intervals, including those that cross the hour
Whole class
Group activities
Paired/indiv practice
Resources
Show a clock with a second hand to the children.
This clock has a minute hand and an hour hand but
it also has a second hand. We can see it moving.
Let’s count the seconds. Wait until the second hand
is at the top and count together each time it
moves, stopping when it reaches the top again. We
counted 60 because there are 60 seconds in a
minute, so this hand takes 60 seconds to go around
the clock, whilst the minute hand moves forward
just one minute. There are 60 minutes in one hour,
and so the minute hand moves 60 times in the time
that it takes the hour hand to move from one
number to the next.
How many times do you think you could write your
name in one minute? Take some suggestions and
discuss how some names will take longer to write
than others and so some children will write their
name fewer times. Then use the second hand on
the clock to time one minute as children write their
names on their whiteboards.
Give each child a stopwatch (or as many children as
possible) and explain how to stop and start it.
Start your watches and stop them after 20
seconds. What do you think you could do in 20
seconds? Try a few suggestions.
How long do you think it will take us to count round
the class? Use the stopwatches to time this.
Group of 4-5 children
Show children a range of sand timers. The sand
in each of these sand timers takes a particular
time to go through from the top to the bottom.
Some people use these to time boiling an egg.
One of these timers times half a minute, one
times one minute, one two minutes and one
three minutes. (Adjust according to the timers
you have.) Which do you think is which and
why? Write children’s suggestions on Post-its™
and stick them to the timers. Tip them upside
down at the same time and start a stopwatch,
calling out the times when each has emptied its
sand into the lower half.
We’re going to make our own sand timer. We
have two plastic bottles and a piece of card.
Place the card under one of the bottle necks
and draw around it. Poke a hole through the
middle. Place about two cups of sand (perhaps
mixed with a little glitter!) in one of the
bottles. Place the card over the bottle, so that
the outline aligns with its neck, place the other
bottle over the other so that the two necks
align, and very carefully tip/turn the bottles
through 180° over a cardboard box/tray to
catch any spillages. Ask a child to start the
stopwatch at the same time. They should shout
Children take in turn to use a
stop watch to time how long it
takes their partner to:
 Write their first name
five times;
 Make a tower of ten
cubes;
 Count to 30;
 Stand up and sit down 5
times;
 Write numbers 1 to 20
in order.
They record their results in a
table (see resources).
Harder: Children first predict
which will take the longest
and the shortest.
 Stopwatches
 A range of
sand timers
 Two identical
transparent
plastic bottles,
card, scissors,
sand, funnel,
cardboard
box/tray and
tape
 Table to
records results
(see resources)
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days
Show children a geared analogue clock. Each of
these little marks around the outside of the clock
shows one minute, so the minute hand shows us one
minute has passed when it moves from one little
mark to the next. They are in groups of five. Let’s
count the number of minutes in one hour. Move the
minute hand and count on in 5s: five, ten, fifteen,
twenty… sixty. There are sixty minutes in one hour.
Look what’s happened to the hour hand. It’s moved
forward by one hour. How many minutes do you
think there might be in half an hour? Count round
in fives to check.
How many hours are there in a day? The hour hand
moves round the whole clock twice in a day, that’s
why we have the same time twice each day, so 8
o’clock can be 8 o’clock in the morning or 8 o’clock
in the evening. How many days are there in a week?
How many are usually school days? And how many
are at the weekend? And there are 52 weeks in one
year!
stop when one minute is up. Has all of the sand
gone through? Did it go through too quickly?
How can we change it? Discuss making the hole
bigger/smaller and using more/less sand.
Repeat until the sand passes through in
approximately one minute. Remove the card, cut
round the neck outline, replace and use tape to
seal the two bottles together.
Harder: Give a timer to each pair of children to
time. They might be able to work in pairs to
make their own sand timers.
Group of 4-5 children
Work together to make a water
clock. Give a stop watch to each
child. Cut a clear plastic litre
bottle in half, make a small hole in
the lid, place the top half of the
bottle upside down, in the bottom
half of the bottle, and pour two
cups of water into the top half
and ask the first child to start
their stop watch. They should call
out after one minute, you mark on the level of
water with a pen, as the next child starts their
stopwatch. Continue until all children have
timed a minute. Where do you think the water
will be after 10 minutes? Mark on some
approximations.
Easier: Instead of using stopwatches, children
use sand timers.
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Children shuffle cards of
equivalent times. They turn
over a sand timer and see if
they can find all the pairs of
equivalent times before the
timer runs out. They then use
the cards to play pelmanaism.
(They shuffle cards and turn
them face down, and then
take it in turns to turn two
over and see if they are
different ways of saying the
same lengths of time e.g. 60
seconds and one minute. If
they are the same, they keep
them, if not they turn them
over again. The winner is the
person with the most cards.)
Easier: Children could use one
minute sand timers.
Harder: Cards include extra
pairs, e.g. 30 minutes and half
an hour (see resources).
 Geared
analogue clock
 Clear plastic
litre bottle
with lid
 Scissors, sharp
point such as a
pair of
compasses,
CD/OHP
marker
 Sand timers
(preferably 30
seconds)
 Equivalent
times cards
(see resources)
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days
Launch the ITP Tell Time. Stop the clock and use
the toggle to change it to 9 o’clock. Display both
the analogue and digital clocks. Both these clocks
show 9 o’clock. This one is a digital clock, where
have you seen clocks like this? The digital clock has
a zero before the 9, some clocks show this and
some don’t. It fills the space when it’s not 10, 11 or
12 o’clock, but we don’t need to write it.
Group of 4-5 children
Play Time Bingo to give children extra practice
in recognising equivalent times (see resources
for game boards). Give a different game board
to each child.
Cut up a copy of the cards for questions and
shuffle them. Use them to ask questions such
as the following:
If you have a clock, which shows 3 o’clock, put a
counter on it;
If you have a clock which shows half past 7 put
a counter on it;
A child wins when they have covered all their
clocks.
Repeat, asking children to swap game boards,
and shuffling the pack of times used for
questions.
Easier: Give game boards to pairs of children so
that they can support each other.
Children practise reading
equivalent times (o’clock and
half past) on analogue and
digital clocks (see resources)
and then put times in order.
Harder: There are more blank
equivalent times to complete
and the times are not
consecutive half hours.
 ITP Tell Time
 Time bingo
game boards
and cut out
copies of
question cards
(see resources)
 Counters
 Activity sheet
of analogue and
digital clock
faces (see
resources)
 Glue sticks and
scissors
Choose an interval of half of an hour and click. The
minute hand has moved half way round the clock
and the hour hand has moved to half way between
9 and 10. What’s happened to the digital clock?
Why? Let’s see the time half an hour later. Click
the half toggle again. What time is it now? Repeat
several times. Then click to hide the digital clock,
advance the time by half an hour and ask children
to write the digital time on their whiteboards.
Repeat several times.
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days
Give each child a circle of paper. Fold your circle in
half. Now fold it in half again so that you have four
equal parts. (Demonstrate folding into quarters if
necessary.) What do we call these parts? This
circle is a bit like a clock face. Write 12 at the top.
What number goes at the bottom? Why? Draw out
that 6 is half of 12, 6 is half way round the clock.
Point to where 3 should go on the clock face. What
number can we write here? This number is a
quarter of the way round the clock face. When the
minute hand is here, it is a quarter of an hour past
an hour. Point to where the 9 should go. And here?
When the minute hand is here, it has a quarter of
an hour to go until the next o’clock time.
Launch the ITP Tell Time, just display the analogue
clock, show 9 o’clock and a time interval of quarter
of an hour. What time does the clock show now?
Click on ¼ hour. Now it shows a quarter past 9, this
means it’s a quarter of an hour after 9 o’clock. We
write it like this. Write ‘quarter past 9’ and ‘¼ past
9’ on the board. Click ¼ hour again. What time is it
now? Click again. Now it’s only quarter of an hour
before it’s 10 o’clock, look how the hour hand is now
quite close to 10 o’clock. We call this time quarter
to 10. Click ¼ hour again. It’s quarter of an hour
later, so it’s now 10 o’clock. Press ¼ hour again.
What time is it now? Change the time interval to
one hour and click repeatedly asking children to
write the time on their whiteboards. Point out how
they just need to rub out the last number each
time.
Group of 4-5 children
Show 3 o’clock on a geared analogue clock.
Show me the time on your clocks that is
quarter of an hour later than this. How do we
say that time?
Move the minute hand to a quarter round the
clock to show children quarter past 3 and
discuss what happens to the hour hand.
Now show me the time that is quarter of an
hour later than quarter past 3. What time is
that?
Ask questions involving simple time intervals,
asking children to respond by showing you their
clocks such as the following:
Show 12 o’clock on your clock. A class go in for
lunch at this time. They take quarter of an
hour to eat their lunch and then go out to the
playground. What time do they go out into the
playground? Show me.
A TV programme starts at 5 o’clock. It lasts
half an hour. What time does it finish? Show
me.
Sam goes to bed at 8 o’clock. It’s half past 7
now. How long is it before he goes to bed?
Show me quarter past nine on your clocks. If
assembly starts at quarter past nine and lasts
for quarter of an hour, what time does it
finish?
Show quarter past 3 on the clock. This is the
time that we finish school. If we have PE in the
afternoon, we need ¼ of an hour to get
changed, give out letters and book bags and get
our coats. What time should we come back to
the classroom? Show me.
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Children work in pairs to cut
out times and stick them in
order (see resources).
Harder: Children have to
write times underneath each
clock first.
 Paper circles
 ITP Tell Time
 Geared
analogue clock
 Small clocks
for children to
use
 Activity sheets
of times to
order (see
resources)
 Glue sticks and
scissors
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days
Easier: Focus more on half hour intervals to
begin with.
Harder: If children are confident, include some
times involving quarter to the hour.
© Original teaching sequence copyright Hamilton Trust, who give permission for it to be adapted as wished by individual users.
Y2 Maths TS_M2 – Aut – 4days