Sand Timers

I feel like summer is flying by!!!! Please slow down! I am not ready to go back just yet! I enjoy sleeping late, reading books, and napping even more!

Even though school is out, I do enjoy working on school projects. One of the projects I planned on working on were sand timers. My class two years ago had a difficult time with Daily 5. No matter how many times we practiced and model the appropriate and inappropriate ways --- I had a few who just could not work on Daily 5 independently. I sat in a faculty meeting and listened to a fellow teacher share a media clip from the "sisters" about how to deal with students who could not independently work on Daily 5. One of the strategies shared were sand timers. What a great idea! But I had no money to purchase them. I had spent my school money and I really couldn't afford to spend my own money at the time. The more I investigated, the more determined I became to make them.
I was able to make some which I used for Daily 5 and for other things in the classroom. I have found that the timers need to be remade each year -- depending on your class. Below is how to make them:

 

I collected the mini-water bottles. These were from my classroom. Students drank water with their snacks. I collected some and recycled the others. I took them home and washed them and removed the labels.

 

 

I poured colored sand in the bottles. I only filled each container half full. I had this sand in my classroom. I bought play sand several years ago and colored it myself.

 

 

I used the other empty containers to draw circles on a piece of sturdy material. In this picture, I am using the cardboard piece on the back of a legal pad. It is easy to cut using scissors but strong enough for the sand.

 

 

After cutting out the circles, I used the scissors to make a hole in the middle. Be careful doing this! Start out small and then if you find that you want to increase the sand flow to be faster, then you can make the hole bigger.

 

 

Place hot glue around the edges of the water bottle and glue the cardboard piece on top.

 

 

Place hot glue around the edges of the other conatiner and place it on top. Test your timer to ensure that the sand goes through AND see how long of a timer that you have. If you want to make the hole bigger, then you will have to pull the pieces apart. This may break the carboard piece. If it does, then you will have to start over. I did not glue the second bottle on before testing. I tested the sand timer and decided if I wanted to make the hole bigger before gluing the second piece. If you do this, you may spill sand out of the container.

 

 

These are the ones I made today. My timers range from 2 minutes to 12 minutes. I also created chevron labels with the timer range and glued them on the bottles. I did not have to purchase anything from the store. I plan on letting my own children test out one of the two minute sand timers in their bathroom these next few weeks before school. We have lost 2 small timers that the orthodontist gave to my oldest son to help him with his teeth brushing. It is amazing how NO ONE knows where the sand timers disappeared to! This sand timer is too big to misplace!