It wasn’t fancy, but it was reliable with nothing to download. Previously you could just type “1-minute timer” in Chrome’s Omnibox, and Google would generate a countdown timer for whatever time you designated.

As of the writing of this post, it seems that it has just vanished. It appears that this trusty timer has been pulled off stage for a bit. No one wants to be late for lunch or their planning period! 1. So as the school year arrives, be sure to consider adding these timers to your stash. Not only can they go along with the theme of your classroom or unit, but they can also be displayed so that all the students can self-monitor how much time is left before the alarm goes off. While egg timers still dot teachers’ desks across districts, many find that digital timers are much more helpful. Of course, I wouldn’t realize it until it was too late, which meant we would be late for lunch, or worse, late for P.E. Unfortunately, it would sometimes stop running before time was up, meaning it wouldn’t go off.

I would set the timer, put it on my desk so that I could walk around and help students, and trust it would do its job. I use the word “trusty” with some skepticism. Whether it was counting down the time that students had left to complete an assignment or keeping track of how long students were at centers, my trusty egg timer was ready to help…most of the time. Though it didn’t get used every day, there were definitely times it came in handy. Back in the day, I had a wind-up timer on my desk.

Classroom timer clock