Happy Easter peeps.
What’s cooking? We’re off for some free range AKA camping. Have a great timer whatever you do.
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Egg Timers keep the classroom moving…

I cannot recall how I came up with the idea to use an egg timer to keep things moving in my classroom, but I’m sure it was in a practicum class during my teacher certification program. One thing I do know, this is by no means an original idea. I have a total of 60 minutes for each class period. One might think, seems like myriad of time, so what’s the rush? Indeed it’s a lot of time, but I like to use all 60 minutes in an effective fashion. That being the case, if I don’t monitor my time correctly, I would fail at that task. I could just look at a clock on the wall, but I don’t have one. The no clock thing wasn’t intentional. However, during my first year, I realized I had a few “clock watchers.” I used to be one myself during my younger days from time to time, so I wasn’t offended. It’s important to note, this isn’t a fool proof method of time management. There have been times that I have run out of time in the classroom due to student discussions, direct instruction comprehension issues, or extended question & answer segments in class.

I’m digressing – let’s get to the method itself. There are a couple of reasons that I use an egg timer, but it’s mostly about time management in the classroom, but it also has a level of behavior management which usually go hand in hand. In order to give you better insight as to how a typical Language Arts/Literature class goes, I will layout the schedule as follows: bell work to start class in which in which I take attendance & settle kids (5 – 7 minutes total), daily reading comprehension worksheets in which instruction is given w/ a 5 minute per sheet (2) time frame as well as a call and response for comprehension check (12-15 minutes total), popcorn reading of current reading selection while using active note taking skills (30-35 minutes total), and a reading journal w/ comprehension check as ticket out of class (10-12 minutes total). As you can see, these are typical time frames in which I keep the class moving forward to meet the varying objective(s) for the day. As mentioned earlier, this isn’t a fool proof system, but having an egg timer to keep yourself on the tight schedule helps. That being said, I have to be flexible because if I’m not, it doesn’t leave extra time for student interaction and/or extra questions. To simplify, every time we move forward in class, it’s done so on a time table that is monitored by the old trusty egg timer.

The second reason I use the egg timer in class is for the fact that it helps with classroom behavior management. Students enter my classroom in an orderly fashion (as orderly as 7th Graders can be) after I greet them at the door. I set the tone in the beginning of the year. I let my students know that I am strict, and that I try to be fair. That being said, I also let them know that sometimes it is what it is and that we have to move forward as unfair as it may or may not seem. I once had a substitute tell me that I had a lot of activities in my lesson plan. At first I didn’t know how to take that, but as I look back on it – I have a big grin ;] It simply reinforces the idea that I don’t like to waste students time and/or have them sitting in class doing unstructured activities. That isn’t to say that I’ve never given students the last couple of minutes or so on a Friday the chance to quietly chat in their groups. However, even that time is somewhat structured. If we have time on Fridays, we will either play alphabetical improvisation, or they can get a jump start on homework for the weekend. I digress, the reason the egg timer is an important tool for behavior management is that it conveys the message to the students that we have things to accomplish in a certain amount of time.

Structure is very big at this age level. If you let the students know what is expected of them and for how long the increments will be, it cuts back on attention span problems. A lot of students appreciate the structure that I provide in the classroom even if they won’t admit it aloud;] Using an egg timer in the classroom isn’t an earth shattering concept to understand. However, little things count while inside a classroom. The little things that you do and do not do matter in regards of how the class moves forward towards the objective for the day. For me, consistency and structure are two key things that I will continue to work on. Who knew an egg timer would help me do that…

Read them and … take the food out o’ da oven, dawg!

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As always, all images can also be seen on my Flickr site & clicking on the picture above will bring you to a sharper copy.

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Which comes first – chicken legs or egg timer?  I think for me, it was probably the egg timer. Chicken legs came later in life.  Mum used to make baked chicken but memory is strong on egg timers which weighed more in my mind that chicken legs.  Certainly egg timers have more mass than force, at least from outside the realm of the timer.  I mean it’s all force with a chicken leg, scratching around in the dirt looking for grit, with their head cock-eyed down to the earth and sky for an instant.  No the face of an egg timer is pretty straight and it doesn’t exert any force whatsoever, except on the mind of the child watching it.  Which is why egg timers, mechanical ones are a pain – they tick along like a chicken scratching.  What you really need is the timer that just has sand falling down inside a glass.  Yes but they are hopeless mate, what happens is that the sand falls down due to the force of gravity, it has some small mass, and then when it’s all down you basically spin the thing over and it starts again, but unless you are watching it, you don’t know when the time limit is reached. I think there is something comforting about having a ringing or dinging of things, ring ding at the end of an allotted span of time, you wind it up, set it on the table, and then at the end of the time interval, it rings, just like the phone.  So you go get your egg and turn it off on the stove.  Yes for sure now you don’t need an egg timer – now I can set any time I like on the microwave, put the egg – all mixed up – inside a bowl – and just turn on the microwave, which automatically turns off – and the ringing thing is to tell me to “REMOVE FOOD”..

As if I didn’t know anyway – hungry for the egg, and eggs come before chickens as you all know.

Yes it’s all chicken and egg with mathematics as well.  What comes first ? The chicken of an idea or the egg of theory.  Which has more courage, which succumbs to the mass of criticism or the force of pure reason. Lets be reasonable now.  The old equation learnt in high school – F = MA is the same.  It implies kind of that Force = Mass x Acceleration.  Newton again, but definitely gravity existed before the apple on the tree, and the Acceleration faced by the Apple was due to the Gravitational Force acting on it’s mass.  So a more natural equation would be —- A = F/M … yes I think I like this better, but you see typesetters don’t like division A = F/M.  So what happens when the mass goes to zero – dummy. ? I hear the critique coming – then basically the acceleration is infinitely better isn’t it.

So what you are saying is that without the Mass of Criticism, there would be infinite acceleration of an idea, with just the slightest amount of reason behind it. Yes, it can get a bit that way with people.  Wake up with an idea, hide it from the critics and with a minor reason – go destroy something.  It is very hard to make something decent without a mass of criticism to balance your force of reason out.

I had an idea about string theory.  With a kiwi fruit just sitting there on the table, it looked so … I don’t know passive – just sitting there, as though not to be loved, forced down by gravity on a table waiting for someone’s enjoyment or neglect.  Inside a whole universe of life, but outside, just an object of still life. Waiting for a painter or something.  As an Idea with no reason whatsoever, I felt the urge to tie a string to the kiwi fruit, as though it was a present perhaps, or like the world on a string perhaps.

There are many string theories, most of which are not comprehensible by the average person, even mine.  I am sure my string theory, an idea, without the force of any reason whatsoever, with the gravitational impact of a whim and with the mass of intellect of what it takes, waiting for the microwave pseudo egg timer to go off, or my wife to say “please REMOVE FOOD from the table, and what is that silly string doing tied to it ?”

SUPERSTRINGTHEORY

and the laser level gets its runner-up award, for being a simple bit of tech, that stops me driving 20 unwanted nails or 100 pencil marks on a wall…. So it is a mental health and rental bond saving legend…..

After the getting a tv reception, the first thing I do when moving into a new house is get some pictures on the wall… The meltdowns from trying to get a decent TV reception have been largely mitigated by the introduction of digital TV…. So the ability to use a laser to hang pictures, in a non distracting even height is the NEW, new house obsession….

I am a complicated man with simple pleasures, or I am a simple man with complicated annoyances…. but either way I can watch a movie, with fresh popcorn and not be distracted by uneven pictures behind the screen…. Joy….

“I block out time on my work calendar every morning and every evening as “email time”. That way I am not interrupted by email all day long. Another tip that works is to end each day at work by doing a “mind dump” into my task list of everything that is on my mind. That way I can go home with a clear head ready to spend quality time with my family, rather than trying to remember a bunch of little to-do’s.”

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Paige Carbone, Life Purpose and Career Coach (LifeCoachPaige@gmail.com), writes:

“I thought readers might do well if they set aside certain times of the week or month to take care of the things they need to, like paying the bills, organizing the home office, shredding junk mail, doing the laundry, etc. For example, readers can choose to do their laundry only on Wednesday evenings, or sort through and pay their bills on the first of the month and only the first of the month. If they stick to it, it becomes a routine and a creative way to manage time.”

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Harriet Shohet writes:

“I love both of these ideas [referring to the prior post and ZoomLetter, "2 Ways to Buy Time"] – and am going to buy myself two egg timers – one for home and one for work!!”

Just to let you all know, in the last post, the picture of the Green Bunny Ears was not by Toronto, it was by Mike92. We have now fixed that, and you can view the changes by clicking (here). Also, the Green Bunny Ears may not be the free item! We are not sure what went wrong with the tracking, or if something even did go wrong with it! But we will keep you updated with all of the news!

In other news: The Easter Egg Hunt is on it’s way! Only two more days! I’m very excited, and already have some idea’s on where some of them may be hidden! Keep you eyes peeled for eggs around the island starting March 21st!

Also, the Beta Testing has about 2 more weeks to go, and a lot of more glitches have been fixed!!! Also, on March 15th, the Test servers uploaded the Saint. Patrick’s Party. It was a lot of fun to test with the party! The party has ended now, and the island looks like its old self!

Lastly, there has been a lot of commotion on Egg Timers. Here is what it looks like.

These timers appear in the SWF. Load Files of the UK Club Penguin Site. Click (here) to go there. Club Penguin had made these a long time ago, maybe even in the beginning of the game, about a month after it came out. These would be used for parents to set the time on how long their child would be able to play on Club Penguin each day. My mom wouldn’t really mind though, since I don’t play it obsessively. Here is what it looks like when your time would be up.

Hopefully Club Penguin won’t put these in the U.S. version, because it just wouldn’t be the same! If anything, parents should just make better rules, don’t you think?

Waddle On – TvargsMrz