Timelines are a very useful learning tool. They can be written or illustrated, can document any event and will keep children's attention much easier than a book or document. They are also useful for revision purposes, allowing children to refresh their knowledge fast, and they are both easy and fun to create.
Instructions
1. Choose on what you want to do your timeline. You could choose a current topic, an upcoming topic or something such as your school year, featuring holidays and terms. Other ideas are documenting the important events in a battle or in somebody's life.
2. Do research as a class. Split the class into groups and give each group a different resource. For example, one group could use the Internet while another uses an encyclopedia, newspapers or textbooks.
3. Ask each group to write down any relevant information they find, and set a time that the researching will end. Monitor each group to check that they are staying on-topic, but try not to influence the researching too much, as each child will learn valuable researching skills.
4. Give each group five minutes to present the information they found. Write down all the information, even if some of it cannot be used on the timeline.
5. Sort through the information together, deciding which information can be used and which can't. Ensure the students know why the information is usable or not, as this will help them to make their own timelines later.
6. Decide what scale the timeline should be. Consider where you will put it. For example, if you choose to have an inch for each day of the school year, each month will be two to three feet.
7. Plot the important information along the timeline. For a school timeline, mark holidays and breaks. Put down any trips you have planned, or days of interest. You could also add the students' birthdays and any important anniversaries. For a timeline of a war, add the start date, end date, any ceasefires and any important dates, such as the start and end of individual battles.
8. Add images to the timeline. For the school year, you could add a relevant image for each month, such as a snowman for January, a heart for February and a shamrock for March. For a battle, you could add photos of the place, or pictures of weapons or technology such as cannons.
9. Display the timeline somewhere visible. You may want to add a movable marker to show the students how far through the year you are, or how far through a topic you are.
Tags: each group, school year, each month, information they, timeline school
