Time Tracker

I just wanted to quickly share a new toy...I mean tool we recently purchased.  

Learning Resource Time Tracker Mini

We got ours from Amazon.

One BIG struggle we had last year with schooling C., soon to be 8 years old, at home was getting him to finish tasks in a timely manner.  This was a problem at brick and mortar also.  I have very little patience for time wasting... so there was quite a bit of frustration in that regard last year.  So my mind has been turning over options for this next school year.  We received this mini time tracker this week and I put it to use to see how it goes.

These opinions are my own...I've not been asked to review this product.

So far I have not found cons with this product.  Once the school year starts...one con might be that all the others will want one too!  :-D

Pros:

* Small...but not too small. This is a great "personal" time tracker.  It will be able to go with C. anywhere he's at.  It fits nicely at the small computer desk also.

*  Not distracting to others.  Volume control for alarm...or could be turned down so there is no alarm.  The alarm is just a simple beep beep.

*  No irritating ticking!!!!!!!!

* Visual!  Visually appealing in general and also has red, yellow and green light that turn on according to the time that's left.

* Versatile...can program time and warning time from 5-120 minutes.

* Child friendly, they can set the time and the warning time themselves.

This summer we have used Summer Bridge books and overall I like them.  However, what should really only take 20-30 minutes were turning to long drawn out 2 hour segments for C.  Heaven help us!  Just was a reminder to me that we'll have this issue again.

How we used it this summer.  Summer Bridge should take NO MORE than 30 minutes.  Set timer for 30 minutes.  Set warning time for 10 minutes.  At 30 down to 10 minutes the light is green.  At 10 minutes to 0 minutes the light is yellow and then turns red when time is up.  Alarm goes off at this time if you wish for it too.  C. was told that he has the 30 minutes to complete his Summer Bridge pages to the best of his ability and when he was finished he had that much time at the computer.  (He loves the computer.)  However, we would keep track of how much time he used over the timer and that would cut into his computer time.  Did it work?  Absolutely!  I was giving it a try for how I thought the school year would work.  I'm sure some of the newness will wear off but hopefully after the better habits are formed!

For the school year, each assignment is going to have a time written next to it.  It'll be an estimated time of how long the task SHOULD take him.  If the timer goes off, he will stop that task and put it in a "finish later" area.  In the afternoon, before his allotment of computer time...he MUST finish the tasks in the "finish later" area first.  The downside to that (for him) is he will only be able to use the computer to a certain time in the afternoon.  So if he goofs up the 2nd time, he'll 'run out' of time to work at the computer.

I think the visual timer itself will work better on its own even without the computer time attached to it.  He really has NO sense of time.  Very seldom is he truly choosing to waste time.  However, we'll double the possibility of success by attaching the success of completion of assignments to computer time at the beginning of the year anyway!  :-D