am and pm 🦊

Teaching am and pm

Prerequisites: reading o’clock, half past and quarter times, and knowing there are 24 hours in a day. See Digital Clock.

Suggested sequence (15 min)

1. Recall the day: children list events from waking to sleeping, and place them on a daily timeline.
2. Two trips: walk the hour hand round a model clock from midnight to noon, then noon to midnight. Count the trips.
3. Label: write am under the first trip and pm under the second.
4. Sort: use the “am or pm?” game above. Ask children to give a reason each time.
5. The 12s: use the slider to show midnight and noon, then talk about why 12 comes first in each half.

Common misconceptions

• 12 am is “noon”. It is midnight. Use the slider to show the difference.
• pm means “night only”. Lunch (12:30 pm) and home time (3:30 pm) are pm too.
• 1:00 am means the afternoon. Link it to the time children are asleep.
• Mixing up “past noon” and “past midnight”. Show the two trips on a number line.

Questions to ask

• “How many times does the hour hand go round in a day?”
• “Is 6:00 the same time in the morning and the evening? How do we tell them apart?”
• “What comes after 11:59 am?”

🍎 Smartboard tip: project the slider and ask the class to predict am or pm before you move it.

Curriculum links

UK Year 2: know the number of hours in a day. UK Year 3: tell and write the time using 12-hour clocks. US CCSS 2.MD.7: tell and write time from analogue and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.

What your child is learning

Your child is learning that a day has 24 hours but a clock only shows 12, so we add am (before noon) or pm (after noon) to tell the two halves apart.

Why it can feel tricky

• The same time, like 7:00, happens twice a day. Only am and pm tell them apart.
• 12:00 am and 12:00 pm feel the wrong way round at first.

Easy ways to help at home

• Ask “Is that am or pm?” about daily events: the school run, dinner, bedtime.
• Look at phone alarms. Ask what “7:00 am” means.
• Talk about what the sky looks like at 7 am and 7 pm.
• Make a day chart with pictures and write am or pm next to each.

🏠 Try this at dinner: “We are eating at 6:00. Is that am or pm?” (pm!)