Tried it Tuesday- Time Timer

Tuesday again, time for Tried it Tuesday! Join Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper for this fun linky.

My very first blog post was about this most important tool in my classroom. After using it for the whole school, I know this is a MUST have for me when it comes to teaching. I love this thing, I mean really LOVE! I knew I would use it and I knew my students would grow to love it.

And oh how they do! I seriously could not teach without. My students even teach my subs how to use it because they don't want to miss a day without it.

 Yes, it actually called a "Time Timer". Not very original, but who cares, right?

I have 6 classes a day. They are each 50 minutes and the pace is fast!  Last year I would spend too much time on warm up and run out of time for the lesson. I am not sure I even had a clock in my room last year, it was just chaos.

Now, I never hear "How much more time until the bell" or "When does the bell ring?". My students are so trained by this timer. When the tardy bell rings, I set it for 50 minutes. Then we get to work.

Funny thing is, most of the time I hear, "Wow, we only have 10 more minutes" or "Wow, class went by fast".
Rarely do we feel the class periods drag on.

This year, I do have a clock, but rarely look at it. My Time Timer is my life line.

I bought mine through our local teacher store. It is also available through Lakeshore.

One word of warning though: Be sure to keep extra batteries on hand. We get so out of sync if the battery dies and I am out. Like I said, life line people!!!

When I first posted about it, I thought I would use it differently, but I use it specifically for pacing my class periods.  If we are working in groups and need timers, I don't use this. I use the free online timers.
Check those out at http://www.online-stopwatch.com/. My students love these as well. These are also very visual.

Till next week...