Look at this clock. The long hand is down near the 9, and the short hand is up near the 10. What time do you think it is showing? Look carefully at which hand is which before you decide, because one of them is trying to trick you.

The interactive shows four clocks in turn. Watch both hands each time, and keep an eye on where the short hand is when the minutes are high. What hour is it really?

Now we set the hands together. The board shows a target time, and one pupil comes up to drag the hands to match it while the rest of us check their work. Before each pupil presses Check, look at the short hand and predict the hour out loud, then check the long hand is on the exact minute. We will set these three times in turn:

• 4:25
• 8:50
• 11:08

Now we set the hands to match each target time. We will work up from easy times to the really tricky ones where the hour hand tries to fool us.

What we learned today

• The short hand tells the hour, the long hand tells the exact minute.
• Each small mark is one minute; each number is a five-minute jump.
• When the minute is large, the short hand creeps toward the next number — but the hour does not change until it gets there.