What is duration?

Duration is how long something takes to happen from start to finish.

Imagine you're playing with your favorite toy, maybe a train set or a building block tower. Duration is like the time you spend playing with it before you decide to stop and go watch TV.

Think of duration as a timer you press when you start playing. If you play for 10 minutes, the timer shows that the duration of your playtime was 10 minutes. It’s like counting how many times you can jump before you get tired, each jump is part of the time you're having fun.

When you go to school, your teacher might say, “We have 20 minutes for this activity.” That 20 minutes is the duration of your classwork. It’s also like how long it takes to cook a pancake, if it takes 5 minutes from when you turn on the stove until it's ready, that’s the duration of cooking.

So whether you're playing, learning, or eating, duration is just the time between when something starts and when it ends.