standard activity 1.1.8

By: Mary Ellen Wessel

1.1.8 Develop a simple timeline of important events in the student's life.

• Timeline - a linear representation of important events in the order in which they occurred.

• Timelines can be used to show many different things such as important events in one’s life, the evolution of inventions, history, or the sequence in a story.

• Have students create a simple timeline on a plain sheet of computer paper. The timeline should include important events ranging from at least their parents births to the present time.

• Students will be encouraged to put a star on the most important events that occurred in their lives. The stars will be used later in the activity.

• The teacher should make a large timeline around the classroom. Start with the year the students were born. Starting with the oldest student’s year of birth. Have students create pictures representing different times in their lives. Each student should create at least 3. These events should be based on the stars from the students individual timelines. The timeline’s years will be divided into months.

• Each day the teacher should say a different year. If any students have an important event they should show the class their pictures and explain why that event is important. Then have the student's put their drawings on the timeline in the correct order in which things occurred.

• Once the timeline is finished explain that timelines are used for other important events worldwide. Show examples of timelines. Good examples would be technology timelines. Students could make a timeline to show how something has evolved over time and how it was created. One such technology could be the telephone.

• Explain that timelines can be used to help understand the order of events in a story. Use the book Tuesday by David Wiesner. Have students choose a partner to work with. They will need a blank sheet of paper. They are going to make a timeline to figure out what is happening in the story. Each student will see every other page. Then after each student has seen a page they will explain to their partner what they saw. Then they will write or draw what they saw on the timeline. At the end both students will know what happened in the story buy putting the timeline together. Even though both students did not see every page. After the timelines are finished the teacher should show the class the whole story to see how many of the students put the story together correctly.

• The idea from this slide came from Dr. Berridge’s 378 Literacy class.

• Dictonary.com. Retrieved from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/timeline

• Harrington, J. (n.d.). How to Make a Timeline for Kids. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how_5033307_make-timeline-kids.html

• Hopkins, G. (2002, June 24). Timelines: A Timeless Teaching Tool. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson044.shtml

• Social Studies for Kids. Retrieved from http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/timelines.htm

• Wiesner, David. (1997). Tuesday.