Math PicnicFree printable practice

Draw the clock hands worksheets

Reading a clock and drawing one are opposite skills, and the second proves the first. These free printable sheets give a digital time and an empty face, and ask the child to draw the hour and minute hands in the right places.

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Draw the clock hands
Draw the clock hands worksheet — Draw hands · quarter hour, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Drawing forces the part reading lets a child skim: the hour hand is not on the number. At quarter past three the minute hand points at the 3 and the hour hand sits a quarter of the way from the 3 to the 4, not on the 3 — and a child who draws it on the number has read a hundred clocks without noticing where the short hand really goes.

Why this sheet works

Each face is blank with the numbers marked, and the six times spread across the hour so no two sets of hands land alike. Making the two hands clearly different lengths is part of the task, because a clock the child draws has to be readable by someone else — the same standard the printed clocks are held to.

How this one works

One question from this sheet, worked through a step at a time.

Draw 8:00

long hand:the minutes
short hand:the hour
long hand:straight up at the 12
hour is:8
on the 8
long hand:at the 12
short hand:on the 8
8:00
  1. Two hands to place, and this time start with the LONG one — it is the exact one, and where it ends up is what tells you how far the short hand has moved.
  2. Zero minutes past, so the long hand goes straight up to the 12.
  3. Now the short hand, and an o'clock is the one time it sits exactly on a number: straight at the 8.
  4. Both hands placed, and the face now reads 8:00. Check it the other way round — read what you drew, and see whether it says what you were asked for.

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