Telling the Time
Telling the time is its own small system: two hands, twelve numbers, and a set of phrases like ‘quarter past’ that have to be learned. It rewards steady practice more than cleverness.
This path runs from o'clock and half past to reading the time to the exact minute. Start wherever it fits and work along the line.
The path
Each step is a short five-minute game. They start with o'clock and half past, then the quarters, five-minute intervals, and finally every minute on the clock.
The everyday
Reading an analogue clock is a skill children use for life, and it is one of the few maths topics that is almost pure practice: the more clock faces they read, the faster it clicks.
Five minutes a day along this path turns a confusing dial into second nature. When these feel easy, the rest of the games by year are waiting.
Keep exploring
Each path takes one strand of maths and lays its games out in the order they build, the same way this one does.
From number bonds to written column methods and, finally, subtracting past zero into negatives.
Follow the path →
From doubling and the first tables to long multiplication and long division, table by table.
From sharing a shape in half to converting freely between fractions, decimals and percentages.
From counting to twenty all the way to reading, writing and rounding numbers in the ten millions.
From recognising coins and notes to adding amounts, solving problems and working out change.