Saturday, December 1, 2007

The good and bad of visual timers

Bubba and Moose were going to play at the neighbors' house while I went to a meeting. I tried to time it right so that Bubba had the motivation to do his homework, enough time for any possible meltdowns, but not too much time so that we had hours of "Is it time yet?" or random bolting out of the door.

Once the homework was completed, it was clear by several attempts to flee the house, that me saying "We will go at 6:15, when the big hand is on the 3" was not working.

So I set the visual timer.

Waiting...after trying to move the time forward and me failing at my attempt to again explain the abstract concept of time.



Still waiting...at one point turning it upside down and tapping it.



Still waiting, but finally distracted by the Charlie Brown Christmas special...



And you better believe when the red disappeared from the visual timer, he was out the door before I could blink.... without saying a word, without a coat, and with his brother running behind him screaming "Wait! Wait!"

3 comments:

Maddy said...

Oh yes, one of mine does that too, carts it around with him. The other one whips out the batteries and moves it to zero!
Cheers

Kristiem10 said...

We don't have one, but I can see how it would help avoid the flapping and the "Let's go, let's go, let's go!"

Stimey said...

That thing is cool. I might have to get one of those. We have some elaborate red, yellow, green lighted tower that's supposed to do the same thing, but I can't figure out how to work it and I lost the instructions. Yours looks much simpler.