WHAT TIME IS IT?

[Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Well, here's Barbara. What is she doing? We are going to have lots of fun. It's a birthday party. Date, April 7th. Time 4:00 and so on. Barbara thinks the invitation looks quite neat. Her mother and father think so, too. But mother says Barbara will have to hurry if she's going to finish writing all the invitations by bedtime. Look at the clock. What time is it? Can you tell time by reading the hands on a clock? Do you know how? Barbara doesn't know all about telling time yet. But she does know that when the short hand, which is the hour hand, points to seven and the long hand, which is the minute hand, points straight up to 12, it is 7:00. And she knows that when the long hand gets down to the bottom at 6:00, it is half 7 and time for her to start to bed. So she has the time from now to 7 to finish writing her invitations. In this story, we're going to learn a number of things about time and how to tell time by reading clocks. Whenever the picture goes dark like this, it means that time is passing. Now, quite a bit of time has passed and Barbara has finished writing her invitations. What time is it now? The hourhand has passed 7 and the minute hand points straight down to 6. Yes, it's half 7. Father says they can talk more about clocks at story time tomorrow. And if Barbara learns all about reading clocks by her birthday, maybe there'll be a special surprise present. But now it's time for Barbara to go to bed. Well, it's later. And here's Barbara all ready for bed. What time is it now? Yes, it's 8:00. This is the time Barbara goes to bed every night. Good night, Barbara. Pleasant dreams. Now more time has passed and Barbara is sound asleep. Do you think Barbara is dreaming? Let's pretend that she is. Let's pretend that Barbara is dreaming about a big clock. And let's pretend that Barbara is in the dream, too. Since this is a special kind of clock, we can take away one of the hands. This is the short hand. It tells us which hour of the day it is. It points to 12 twice each day. Once at midnight, once at noon, it moves slowly around. When this hand points to one, it is 1:00. When it points to two, it is 2:00. When it points to three, what time is it? Now, everybody call out the time as the hourhand goes around. Now the hourhand has been all the way around the clock and it again shows that the time is 12:00. Now let's put on just the long hand which we call the minute hand. When we know all about reading clocks, we'll know how this hand shows us just what minute it is. But right now we want to learn how to tell time in quarter hours. But where has Barbara gone? Why she has a dream pie. Now what is a pie to do with telling time by the quarter of the hour. Look how the pie is cut into four pieces. We call each of the pieces a quarter of the pie. And notice how the cuts in the pie look. Something like the hands of a clock. We can count time by quarters as we counted the pieces of pie. Four quarter hours make 1 hour. And the minute hand helps us count the quarter hours. It moves all the way around the clock once every hour. The minute hand moves from 12 to 3 in 1/4 of an hour. So when it points to three, we say it's a quarter after or a quarter past the hour. When the minute hand points to 6, it is 2/4 past the hour or we say half past. When it points to 9, it has moved 3/4 of the way, but it will be only 1/4 of an hour until the minute hand gets back to 12. So we say it is a quarter till the next hour. And we know what the big hand means pointing to 12. And on the real clock in Barbara's bedroom, both hands are pointing to 12. It's 12:00 midnight, a new day. But Barbara is sound asleep. Now it's morning and Barbara's father is leaving the house to go to work. What time do you think it is? It's 8:00 in the morning. At 8:00 each morning, father gets on this bus to go to work. The bus driver knows he must come at the same time every morning. because people depend on him to get them downtown at the right time. What time is it now? Barbara has to be in school by 9:00. Do you think she'd better be getting started? There she goes now. All day long, people all over town have to know what time it is. Some people have to get on trains that leave at a certain time every day. At the airport, other people are waiting for a plane that comes in at a certain time. When you go to the doctor or the dentist, you make an appointment to be there at a certain time. Now, it's afternoon and Barbara greets father as he arrives home. But what does he have there from the closet? It's an old alarm clock that doesn't run anymore. But father says it will be a fine thing to use in talking about telling time because you can move the hands by turning the knob at the back. Let's see if you can tell time as well as Barbara can. What time is it when the hour hand points to six and the minute hand is straight up? Now it takes five minutes for the minute hand to move from one number to the next. You can count by fives, can't you? When the minute hand is at 1, it is 5 minutes past 6. Now it's two fives or 10 minutes past, 15 minutes or a quarter past, 20 minutes past, and so on. When we know how to count by fives, we know how to tell time with a minute hand. Now, father is asking if Barbara knows what we use to tell what day it is. What do you suppose Barbara went? Here it is. A calendar. You see, a calendar is a way of telling time, too. The days, the weeks, and months. There's today, Friday, March 24th. Tomorrow will be Saturday the 25th. Then Sunday, and a new week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then it'll be Friday again. On the page for April, Barbara found her birthday already marked. And now the big day has come. Barbara's birthday and there's a party. Even the candles on Barbara's cake are a way of telling time. How many years old she is. Do you know? [Music] Mother has something else for Barbara. Father's present. What do you suppose it is? [Music] Now Barbara won't have to ask anyone. What time is it? [Music]