Skip to the content
Peabody TeachFor teachers and grown-ups

Dinosaur egg timer

A free animated classroom timer: a dinosaur egg cracking open, and it hatches at zero. Any length, counting down or up, with the clock a small chip in the corner.

10:00

Keys: Space start or pause · R reset · ← → 30 seconds · 1 8 the presets · S next scene · U count up or down · C move or hide the clock · M sound · H hear the sound · F full screen

How to use it

  1. Press Start, or Space. The picture is the time: a dinosaur egg cracking open, and it hatches at zero.
  2. It opens at 10 minutes. Press a preset, or Custom to type a length such as 7:30; press U to count up to the time instead of down to zero.
  3. Press F to fill the screen, C to move or hide the clock chip, M for the sound and H to hear it first.

Ideas for class

  • Use it when the end matters more than the middle: a reading stretch that finishes with a story.
  • Count the cracks with a young class: eight cracks is eight eighths of the time.
  • Put it on the board while a group finishes a task they will present afterwards.
  • Run it counting up while the egg is built back together from its pieces.
  • Use it for a long wait, such as the minutes before a visitor arrives.

Related

Questions

What hatches out?

A small green dinosaur, with a crack, a cheep and a very small roar if the sound is on. It shows through the shell in the last quarter, so a class can see it coming.

Is it too exciting for a quiet room?

The cracks spread quietly and only the last few seconds are busy. For a room that should stay settled all the way through, the koi pond or the melting snowman are the better pictures.

Will the dinosaur egg timer keep the right time if I switch tabs?

Yes. The timer compares the clock when you pressed Start with the clock now, so a sleeping tab, a slow laptop or a dropped frame cannot make it drift, and the picture is drawn from the time rather than from its own speed.

Is it really free, and does it need an account?

Free, no account, no ads, and nothing about your class leaves the computer: the length, the picture and the direction live in the address after the # so you can bookmark or share them, and that part is never sent to us.

Nothing you do here is sent to us. Names, lists and settings stay in this browser. No sign-in, no ads.