Look at the clock in the picture. The minute hand is sitting somewhere between the 8 and the 9. It is not exactly on a number, so it is not a tidy 'past five' time.

What exact minute could it be? Could it be 41, or 42, or 43, or 44? How would you work out which one?

Each clock shows the same time two ways: hands and digits. Watch where the minute hand sits and how we read it out. Some are easier to say as 'past', some as 'to'.

Today we set these to-the-minute times on the clock together, and check the digital readout matches each one: 3:12, then 6:47, then 8:09.

While one pupil sets the hands at the board, the rest of us follow along: count the single minutes aloud together, then read the digital screen and confirm it matches before we move on.

Today we work through these fresh times together: 5:23, then 9:41, then 4:07, then 11:59. The single minutes past the nearest five catch people out, and so does the zero before a single-digit minute, so we will count each one aloud before we check it.

What we did today

• We counted single minutes on from the nearest five-minute mark to read the exact minute.
• We matched an analog clock face to its digital readout, and read times as 'past' or 'to'.
• We remembered the zero before a single-digit minute, like 2:09.

Coming up

Next we meet the 24-hour clock, where the afternoon and evening hours keep counting on instead of starting again at 1.