Wanna know why I bought a timer for classroom use recently and how it has helped me? I got it for a specific reason, and it has worked splendidly, as I will explain to you. But then it started to benefit me in other areas that I hadn’t even thought of! Ready to be wowed, if I do say so myself? 🙂
So the reason I bought my countdown timer for the classroom is because of behavior issues, plain and simple. Students weren’t staying on task for long enough, and they weren’t learning time management from just looking at the clock. Which is there, in every classroom. But they seem to be blind to it. So I wanted to get a big timer for classroom use, to stick onto the whiteboard in plain sight for everyone to see. Let me tell you what happened.
Magnetic timer for classroom use
Ok so I found a magnetic timer that I could stick onto my whiteboard in clear view for every student. And what do you know? My students spent more time on-task, and the work was getting DONE. On time! I mean, it may seem logical to you that that’s what happens in a classroom, but it wasn’t happening anymore (all the time) in mine. And this worked!
Seeing the time run out forced my students to get back to work whenever their mind was wandering. I overheard them refer to the timer as well, and encourage each other to keep working ‘because there’s only two minutes left’. And this is working, not only for small time slots like five minutes, or longer ones like 25. My students are working so much better now!
Why else use clock timers for the classroom?
So I did that, and it worked. Then I wondered what else I could use this pretty pretty timer for. This is what I have done in my various groups so far:
- Timed exercises, like a start-of-a lesson warm-up or bell ringer challenge. It makes sure students get started on the work right away.
- Speed date discussion or statement carousel. When students see how much time they have to discuss something before they need to move on, it will give them energy and a need to finish one discussion.
- Timed writing exercise. Set a goal for a writing task and watch students let go of perfectionism and over-thinking.
- Silent reading time. It helps students understand this time is for reading and nothing else. It gets rid of distractions and it trains them to read for longer every time.
- Quiz questions. Give students one minute per question to write down an answer. Great for quick review.
- Timed challenge for groups. Get each group to write down as many as they can of this or that and the group that has the most when the timer runs out, wins.
- Beat-the-clock clean up or transition. This one works well for my double hours I have with students and I want to give them a break in between. They never came back in time when I just told them ‘only three minutes’, but they do now that I have this timer up there 🙂
I have really been enjoying my fun timer for the classroom a lot, as you can see. And I really recommend giving it a try if your group is acting up, or just not on-task, or just need a kick up their behinds! I got this one from Amazon*, but they have other cute ones too. I hope you found this timer for classroom use information helpful!
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*This is an affiliate link, but I also bought this timer and am super happy with it!
