Little Women
• Jul. 1, 2009 - Using a timeline with primary children
I've seen this question a few times, and realized I had figured out a way to help kids understand what a timeline is, and how they work. I thought it might be helpful to others, as well.
I have a little spiel I run through with my kids, the first time. It never has taken us very long, but if my child were getting bored, we'd leave parts for another day. (I've done this 3 times.)
This is a book that helps us remember when things happened in time.
You were born on [April 3, 2002, eg]. Let's write that right here. Here are the dates for this page, so right HERE, we'll write your name and birthdate.
Now, if we go back a few pages, we come to the dates when Mommy was born. It's between these years (show markings at the top), so we'll write Mommy and her birthdate here.
And here's Daddy's, [January 15, 1963, eg].
If we keep paging back, we come to your grandparent's birthdays, so let's put them in here. [Grandma X is right here: October 5, 1940; Grandpa X.... etc.]
What do you suppose happens if we page way, way back, even to HERE? This, right here, is when Jesus was born. Let's write that in. [Depending on child, they can draw a Christmas tree, etc.]
So now we can see when Jesus was born, when Grandma was born, all the way to when YOU were born.
What other things do we know of, that happened a long time ago?
[They might bring something up, or I might remind them of somethings we've recently been discussing, like the Fourth of July, or Columbus Day, or whatever.]
Let's find out where that goes. Oh, here it is. Let's write that in.
Then, for the next several times we get out the book, I find what they've put in before, and do a quick reminder. Then we add, "so, today, we read about so-and-so. He lived around this date, so let's add him to our book."
With this method, even little kids can often get an idea of how the book works. You could do this with a wall-based timeline, too.
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• Jul. 5, 2009 - Timelines