I debated putting this little gem on this site, since it is not really a toy. It is only by virtue of the coolness of design and usefulness to parents that the Time Tracker made the cut. Before we had kids we used to meet some friends for breakfast every other weekend. They had two kids and we used to joke about how if we were supposed to meet them at 9:00, we should actually expect to see them until 9:30 or so. At the time I just thought they were just people that were late for everything. Now I know, the adults were on time, the kids made them late. For Everything.
The Time Tracker is basically a cool looking timer. The first use that comes to mind is to time your kid's visit to "time out". One common problem with time out is that you have to answer "can I come out now?" every 10-15 seconds as long as they are in there. With the Time Tracker, you can set the timer and it will answer those questions for you via sound effects and a traffic light style display.
This little sanity saver can also be used to keep fun time on track as well "you can play video games for only half an hour". The manufacturer also suggests that you can use the Time Tracker for school work and projects, I'm a little unclear on how exactly it would be used, but I'm sure those of you with older kids can think of ways.
How about it? Can you think of other ways that a Time Tracker might come in handy? If so, leave a comment!
Learning Resources - Time Tracker
at Amazon.com
2 comments:
I think this item could be very useful for parents of children with autism. Many children with autism have difficulty transitioning between activities and they often respond well to visual schedules. This timer would provide children with autism a visual countdown of when it is time to change activities. It would help them prepare for changing activities which could in turn help minimize behavioral meltdowns.
Good point. I would also add that children with vision or hearing disabilities might find it useful as well because it has both auditory and visual stimuli
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