EDUcullen: Use Online Stopwatch to Get Your Kids to Finish Work on Time
Teachers quickly learn that telling doesn’t automatically lead to doing.
But why not?
It’s not usually enough to say to a child, “You have 10 minutes to finish this.” Young students know (1) that time exists and (2) it moves forward; however, managing a task within a timespan is an unclear notion for many youths. They haven’t lived through enough events to accurately gauge the passing of time.
So, visual aids work well to strengthen comprehension – and that’s the benefit of Online Stopwatch. It’s a free site with various types of countdown timers.
I use centres all the time in my classrooms. But when I’m doing guided reading with one group of kids, I sometimes spot others off topic. Like, trying to erase an eraser with another eraser. (“I love your experiment but not right now, Shotaro.”)
It’s distracting to me and other students if I remind people out loud to focus on their task. But paired with an overhead projector or interactive whiteboard, Online Stopwatch means I don’t need to interrupt with verbal reminders; students can occasionally glance to see the countdown and then whisper, “Hurry up and finish before the bomb explodes!”
Pictured: motivation
Since young children haven’t yet mastered the concept (or the language) of time, I often rely on the hourglass timer as it visually shows how much sand is left.
Like pixelated sands through the computer-generated hourglass… so are the days of our lives.
The site also features a metronome, a chess clock, an interval timer and others.
Online Stopwatch. More tick, less talk.
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Message Peter on Twitter: @MrPeterCullen.
The Guest Room 
Good idea and interesting.
Thanks, Yuki!