The Clock Face: The Numbers, the Hour Hand, and the Minute Hand

Here is where this shows up in real life. Clocks hang in kitchens, train stations, and church towers, all telling the same hour to everyone who looks. This is worth learning because you cannot read a clock until you know which hand is which.

Watch for it today, and when you spot it, tell someone what you noticed and how you knew. Ask yourself where else the same idea might be hiding, then go and look.

Here is something worth knowing today. A clock face holds the numbers one through twelve in a circle. The short fat hand is the hour hand and it moves slowly. The long thin hand is the minute hand and it moves faster, all the way around while the hour hand creeps from one number to the next.

Point to each hand and say its name until you never mix them up. Knowing which hand is which is the whole beginning of telling time.

Try this until it is automatic. Point at the short hand and say hour. Point at the long hand and say minute. Mixing up the hands is the single most common reason people misread a clock, and thirty seconds of practice fixes it. Practice this a few times and it will start to feel easy.