How to Make a Creative Timeline

A creative timeline provides a student with an unusual and unique way to remember facts. An old-fashioned timeline places dates and important facts on a straight line. Creative timelines use unusual shapes or objects as the basis for plotting information. Holidays and special events provide excellent symbols or objects to use for creative timeline formation. Involve your students in brainstorming ideas for a timeline. This will help bring out their creativity and encourage them to learn more, since the timeline will be at least partly their own creation.

Things You'll Need

• Paper
• Crayons, markers or colored pencils
• Textbook

Instructions

1. Discuss with the students the construction of a timeline and how it works. Explain that a timeline is a way to chronologically place dates and activities on an object to help them remember the facts.

2. Show the students a straight timeline to emphasize how a timeline works. Brainstorm with the students to accumulate ideas on how to make a timeline with an unusual shape or object. Draw a creative timeline on the board in the shape of wavy lines, intersecting geometric shapes or a family tree to show the students how creative timelines are made from other objects. Example: Draw a chain of intersecting circles. Make the intersection large enough to place a date. Write the activity or action within the connecting circle to indicate why the date is significant. Add color to the date to indicate the most important events.

3. Ask the students to open the textbook to the desired facts that will be on the timeline.

4. Give the students paper and ask them to get out their crayons, colored pencils or markers.

5. Help the students design their timelines. Provide help when needed to the students to correctly place the facts on the timeline.

References

• Scholastic: The Journey to Civil Rights
• Google: Images of Creative Timeline