What are sand timers?

A sand timer is like a special clock that uses sand to tell how much time has passed.

Imagine you have two big bottles connected by a tiny neck in the middle. Inside, there’s lots of soft, flowing sand, just like the stuff you play with at the beach or in your sandbox. When you flip it over, the sand starts to pour from the top bottle into the bottom one, grain by grain.

At first, all the sand is in the top part of the timer. As time goes on, more and more sand moves down through the neck. When all the sand has moved to the bottom, that means a certain amount of time, like 1 minute or 5 minutes, has passed.

It’s like watching your favorite snack slowly disappear from your plate, one bite at a time. You know when it’s done because there's no more snack left! That’s how you know when the sand timer is finished.