One of the best purchases I have ever made is my timer. I've always had one for cooking and baking, but a couple of years I ago I found Flylady from an Elizabeth George book and I really liked her idea of doing anything for 15 minutes and using a timer. I believe I purchased mine for $5-6 at Wal-Mart, but I have also purchased them for $1 at Dollar Tree. Those are particularly great for school, where I use it to time my students on how many words they can read correctly in one minute. We also use them to see how many basic math fact problems they can do in one minute. And then there is the one minute "swish and spit" fluoride rinse! I have even given my kids a timer.
Some other useful ways that we use timers:
- Let your children set a timer to make sure they read long enough each night (my daughter has 20 minutes of reading that she needs to do each evening and a timer helps ensure that she reads long enough.)
- Set it for time-outs.
- Give your children a time-limit on showers or baths and use the timer to get them use to that amount of time.
- Set it to let your children know how much time they have until you leave the house each morning. (That one has been a life-saver recently!!)
- Set it for 5 minutes and let your children see how many toys or belongings they can put away.
We do this for speed cleaning too (set a timer) but we just turn on our microwave timer. It works great. We get so much more accomplished and do not feel overwhelmed when we know there is an end in sight.
ReplyDeleteHi there! Just happened across your blog from Meal Plan Monday and I'm in NC too and my honey is also Army. AND, I must have bought 20 timers in the last year - cannot find one I like!!
ReplyDeleteBest,
Sarah
I am a new follower from the blog hop. Please follow me back. THanks
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I too LOVE timers. With out my oven timer we would eat many burned dinners! I am a new follower, would love to have you follow back at creativesouthernhome.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteHello, I am doing a little blog hopping today. I am your newest follower :)
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I had an awesome timer, but I think it fell off the oven too many times, lol. I need a new one!
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Great tips!! We use the timers for countdown to nap time and also for time outs (a must!). What would we do without them? ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for joining my Weekend Bloggy Reading party. Have fun finding a a few good reads, and I hope you'll visit Serenity Now again soon. :)