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![]() Adapted by Linda Burdick from a unit by Maud Anderson, Moultonborough Central School. This lesson is a good way to start a history unit, and helps students grasp the concepts of past, present, and future. You can revisit this activity through-out the year, and use it for a culminating activity. FOCUS QUESTION: This
activity is useful for ALL of the focus questions.
INSTRUCTIONAL OUTCOMES: Students should be able to locate events in time-past, present and future; construct time lines of significant personal, community and state events; and interpret time lines. Students should demonstrate an understanding that historical artifacts and documents represent historical evidence of the past. Students should understand that they, as individuals, are part of an on-going story of their communities, state, and nation. QUESTIONS TO EXPLORE:
Methods:
B. Find a large space to unfurl the timeline. We use our cafeteria. The class sits on bleachers on the side of the room so they can see the entire timeline. We tie the timeline to a stool or support at one end of the room, then have a student unfurl the timeline to its full extent. I hang a few mementos on the timeline: a current class photo to represent the current year; a graduation cap tassel to represent the year our class will graduate from high school; a toy baby bottle or a pair of booties to represent the year(s) the students were born. The students determine that this is a timeline and identify what the hanging objects represent. 2. How are timelines organized? Methods:
B. Call on individuals to hang date cards for the centuries and the half-centuries, for dates you've been discussing in class, etc. 3. How am I part of a timeline? Methods:
B. Students interview parents and make timeline cards for significant dates in their parents' lives and in their own lives. If possible, have them interview grandparents or older people in town. 4. How can
historical documents help us find out what happened in the past and when
events
Methods:
B. Continue to add timeline cards for events you discuss in class. My class has recently been reading diaries and historical fiction from the nineteenth century. We wondered about when various inventions were developed and became readily available. Pairs of students investigated specific inventions (railroad, telegraph, electric light bulb, etc.) and then prepared cards for our timeline. Students can also attach actual objects to their timeline cards to represent the invention (a tin can for the invention of the canning process, a light bulb, etc.). ASSESSMENT:
2. Students construct a timeline of significant events in their community. 3. Students interpret time lines and explain events in sequence. 4. Students use historical documents and other data and accurately place events on a timeline. SOURCES:
NH STANDARDS: History 16, 17, 18 |