Classroom timer, what is that?
Do you know that you can build the children’s knowledge of time starting quite young?
What good can a classroom timer do for the students and teachers?
A lot!
Timers are a great way to keep track of time.
The idea of a timer is time management, to make sure that the time in the classroom/ at home or just about anywhere is being used wisely.
Many times we can lose track of time, which leads to frustration and issues, when we are trying to cover some important stuff.
Timers in a classroom helps in many ways. It grounds the teacher and students by giving them a deadline, helps them be aware of the time and makes their task at hand driven and purposeful.
It simply builds awareness of time. I love using timers in an early childhood classroom. It lays the foundation for telling and appreciating time while strongly building the concept of time management in their minds.
How do I use time in a classroom?
Children love clocks, place an abundant and many different kinds around the room.
- What else can you do? Make time and time awareness a part of your day! Make sure you have a classroom schedule hanging with the time so that children can know what time lunch is, what time centers and play time ends etc. This leads them to look at the clock to see how much time they have. Many times a teacher can point it out to them. “5 more minutes of play, when the clock small hand is on the 12 it is clean up time.”
- When children want the same toy, timers add a wonderful dimension to their learning about sharing. They can use a timer to give each of them the same amount of time to use a toy/ center.
- Timers the indicate how many minutes or seconds there are left. When placed strategically around the room, children will learn how to pace themselves.
- Children can use timers to relax. There are many wonderful differnt classroom timers out there can help children calm down. The sand timers helps children by calming them with steady movement watching the sand flow.
Counting the time in a classroom:
Children love to see their skills advance. It is a great way for them to compare and contrast. Last month it took the class 7 minutes to clean up, today it took 5 minutes and 30 seconds.. wow!
What to look out for when using classroom timers:
Using a classroom timer can create pressure on some children. They may get lost or fazed and thus not produce too well. Be careful when that is the case. Look out for those children, they will seem frazzled, agitated or nervous.
They can get their framework without the pressure by showing them how a timer works and how to figure out how long an activity takes to help them pace themselves.
Timers at home:
My children love playing outside and to get them into the house for bedtime is hard! Summer time, their bedtime ends up being so much later than planned because they keep on asking for more and more time, promising they will get ready for bed in a jiffy.
What did I do? I timed them! This is what I told them; ” I need you to get a decent amount of sleep and when you play outside and rush bedtime it takes you longer than you expected and you end up going to bed late.” “I will time your getting ready for bed and however long that takes I know this is the amount of time you need to be called in prior to bedtime.”
Say one child it took 30 minutes for bath, teeth-brushing and cleanup and I wanted her to be in bed at 7:30, she got called in at 7:00. As long as she kept her momentum of doing it all in 30 minutes, she was able to play outside until 7:00. If I noticed her slacking or taking faster I was able to increase or decrease her time.
They learned pretty fast that you cannot be called in at 7:25 to be in bed at 7:30! Getting ready for bed takes time!
I use a sand-timer at home as well. When my children ask for something and I say I need 2 minutes, they turn over the 2 minute timer. Many times they are surprised it either takes longer or shorter than they expected.
I need 5 more minutes for a phone call. Great, you can turn over the 5 minute timer and please do not disturb until it is done or I am done before.
They learned to appreciate and respect time as something that they can manage.
It cut down the difficulties of constant interruptions, whining that something is taking too long or they had too little time for something.
Yes, time may fly when you are enjoying the activity and it may feel like it takes much longer when you are doing something you do not want to do. It is all the same time. It is how you approach it.
Make the most out of it.
Utilize each minute.