As a teacher, I have always used timers as a very useful tool in the classroom. I use them for reading groups, math rotations, computer time, students support, and for my reading assessments. I also use them for choice whole class activities, such as 5 minute quick writes or 10 minutes of independent/silent reading. I usually just use digital timers, but I love using the free online timers when I am doing something whole class.The online timers are really fun and give students a visual as to how much time they have left. You might think this would be a distraction, but it is not as distracting as students claiming to be done with their work or wondering how much longer they need to keep working on a task.
Initially, students are curious about the different timers and watch it more closely, but less so after they have seen what the timers do. At this point my students just glance up at the timer to see how much time is left. They still want to be ready for it when it goes off, but for the most part they just keep working.
The funny thing about the timers, and kind of an unexpected side effect, is that my students have definitely gotten better at counting back. They don't, of course, count down the whole 5-10 minutes, but they really start watching the last 20 seconds or so. This is key for some of my students who have struggled with using the counting back
math strategy.
If you haven't tried the free online timers I recommend you check them out and play around with them. You will want to decide on the timers that you feel are appropriate. There are bomb and dynamite timers, and you may not feel comfortable with using them. The racing timers are fun to watch, but seem to be a little bit more of a distraction for my students. It's not that I can't use them, I just have to be more selective as to when to use them. Anyways, I hope that you find them to be a useful tool.
Here is the link to the online-stopwatch timers.
Also, feel free to visit my TpT store.
Anna Navarre's TpT Store
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