Timer / Classroom Timer
Classroom Timer — For Group Work & Transitions
Group work, quiz rounds, silent reading, transition time between activities — a visible shared countdown ends the “how much longer” questions on its own. Project it fullscreen or share the link to student devices.
Anyone opening your link right now sees exactly this.
Change the countdown
You can set the time on the board itself — click the digits and roll them with the arrows, or just type it. These controls do the same job, plus counting down to a date.
What to time, by grade band
The right countdown length changes a lot between a first-grader and a senior — a timer that's motivating at one age reads as either patronizing or impossibly long at another.
| Band | Transition | Task or group work | Why that length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary (K–5) | 60s | 2–5 min | Long countdowns lose younger students. Several short ones hold attention better than one twenty-minute block — a minute for "clean up your table" lands where ten would not. |
| Middle school (6–8) | 2–3 min | 10–15 min | Long enough to get into a worksheet, short enough that the end stays in sight. Keep the board visible throughout so students self-pace instead of asking how much longer every few minutes. |
| High school (9–12) | 3–5 min | 20–50 min | Sustained work or a full quiz. Use the Light board style (below) — it reads from the back of a large room, and a projected countdown removes the need to interrupt the class with a verbal time check. |
Whatever the length, the mechanism is the same: project the board at the front, and if students have devices, share the same link — everyone counts down to the identical second, so "how much time is left" stops being a question anyone needs to ask you.
How to use the Classroom Timer
- Set the length on the board itself — click a pair of digits and roll them with the arrows, or type the time in. Quick timer presets are there too if one of them already fits.
- Type the activity under "What's it for?" so the screen answers "what are we doing?" as well as "how long left?".
- Press Fullscreen to project it, or Show QR code so students can pull the same countdown up on their own devices.
- Press Start countdown, and set a fresh timer for each activity so every one gets its own clean clock.
Common questions
- The advantage is sharing: instead of only the front-screen clock, students can pull up the identical countdown on their own device too, so a quick glance answers "how much longer" without asking.
- Yes — set a new quick-timer duration for each activity and share the fresh link; each activity gets its own clean countdown.
- No signup for you or your students. The page itself needs to load once (standard classroom Wi-Fi/projector network is enough), and after that each device counts down locally.