Tico Timer - your fun timer for children!
Beautifully designed timer may ease transitions.
Parents say
Based on 1 review
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Tico Timer - your fun timer for children!
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this app.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Tico Timer - your fun timer for children! is a simple visual and auditory timer designed for kids who struggle with typical countdown timers. It provides corresponding music and simple but engaging graphics that respond to elapsing time by moving across the screen or disappearing. Some kids might find the moving graphics distracting and may focus only on the timer instead of the task at hand. This might be an especially useful tool for breaks or time-outs, especially for kids who need to refocus their energies or calm down. Tico Timer - your fun timer for children! may be a great fit for kids who have a hard time transitioning between activities or are still learning the concept of time and numbers. Several languages (including Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian) are supported.
Community Reviews
Very basic; Sound doesn’t work
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What’s It About?
TICO TIMER - YOUR FUN TIMER FOR CHILDREN! opens to the settings screen where users can set the timer and the visual and music selections. The time feature provides minute and second scroll-down lists, which go as low, respectively, as one second and as high as 30 minutes. There are 11 graphic choices and seven musical selections; a title will give you a sense of what the graphic will be (Bye Bye Squares shows disappearing squares), but some are not entirely intuitive. Once all pieces are selected, users press the Countdown! circle, and the timer begins. The graphics move or disappear, depending on your selection, as time runs out. At the end of the timer, the music stops and a single word appears on the screen. When it's tapped, four circles appear, which might be confusing at first since they serve as the signal to go back to the settings page.
Is It Any Good?
Tico Timer - your fun timer for children! is especially useful for kids who need a break or who struggle with the abstract concepts of time. The correlating graphics and music that accompany the countdown timer may help kids better understand how much time is left while alleviating some anxiety (there is no harsh buzzer or traditional clock countdown, and it's easy to see how much time is left). Some kids may be distracted by the moving graphics or music provided by Tico Timer- your fun timer for children!, especially when using the timer to countdown time for specific tasks (homework, getting dressed). It's likely most helpful for kids who need to take a break, as listening to the music and watching the graphic shifts the focus in a calming way.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how kids felt as they watched the graphics respond as time ran out. Ask kids whether they felt like they had enough time for the activity or if they would adjust next time.
Ask kids to predict how much time an activity might take. Help kids set their own timers and song and then talk about whether they had enough time to complete the activity. Do certain graphics or songs work better than others for certain tasks? Why?
App Details
- Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
- Skills: Self-Direction: time management
- Pricing structure: Paid
- Release date: March 5, 2014
- Category: Education
- Publisher: Ricardo Fonseca
- Version: 1.2
- Minimum software requirements: 7.0 or later
- Last updated: September 16, 2021
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