So thinking it all over, one thing that really stands out is that my son has an extremely poor sense of time.
What's already been helping tremendously has been the use of the Time Timer. That's a timer that shows a visual (like a pie chart) in red of exactly what percentage of an hour remains of your time. As the clock ticks away, the pie graph gets smaller. So if I set it for 45 minutes on the computer, he can glance up and see that there is only a little sliver of red left -- means time is almost up.
He's a very bright child, so you would think he knew how to tell time, and that 10 minutes left is just ten minutes left -- but when we used other timers, he was constantly surprised at how fast his time had gone by, Since I bought this time timer and have been using it, he has had a much easier time accepting that "time was UP" -- seems like less of a suprise or shock.
Other ideas for developing sense of time:
1. Whenever you do an activity that should take, say 10 to 15 minutes, set timer for 15 minutes and ask child to tell you when he thinks only 10 minutes have passed.
2. Ask child throughout the day to guess what time he thinks it is! Keep a running record -- what his guess was and what the actual time was.
3. Adult swim period at the pool lasts exactly 15 minutes. Ask child not to look at closk and to do some activity with you -- ask him to try to stop just before the 15 minute whistle blows.
4. Have him cloase eyes andtell me whan 1 minutes is up.
5. Guess how long it will take to do a certain activity (get dressed, toast toast, boil water; clean bedroom floor. Write down guess an dthen time how long it does take.
6. Guess how long it will take to finish a page or a unit in the workbook. Do the work and time it. Compare prediction.
7. In restaurant, guess how long time will be between ordering food and serving. Then time it.
8. Guess how long it will take to drive from point A to point B.
