Classroom timers are a great tool for teachers in the classroom and pupils love them too. They are a great way to focus pupils on a particular task. They are also a great visual aid for pupils for those times when tasks or tests are timed. When teaching in the mainstream classroom, I regularly used a five minute timer at the beginning of the day to get pupils focused and to have all the materials they needed ready for the first task of the day.
I came across these free PowerPoint timers on my Twitter feed yesterday and thought that they would be ideal in the classroom. They can be downloaded from the Education section of the MS Office templates site. There are two visually appealing timer presentations to download – one is a clock timer and the other is an hourglass timer. Each presentation has timed slides to suit whatever time you want – 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 30 minutes.
To begin a timed event, you just select the slide that you wish eg. 5 minute slide, put the slide into presentation (slide show) mode and click “Start Timer”. The timer then starts and you will see either the clock begin to move or see the sand fall in the hourglass.
Bother timer PowerPoints are available to download for free HERE
