Third Grade: Social Studies

Lifetime Timeline

Help your child practice using timelines by building a timeline of their life, from birth to now! Using whatever materials, you have (printer paper and pens, construction paper and markers, etc.) start by drawing a line with years marked out at even intervals. Start with your child’s birth year and ending the current year— or whenever you want—and mark year in between. (A ruler is helpful if you have one!)

Then fill it in together! Ask your child what important events have happened in their lives and help them fill in the early years with events and stories they might not remember. Events could include:

• Starting preschool or kindergarten
• The addition of a sibling
• The adoption of a pet
• A move to a new house or city
• Meeting their best friend
• Starting an important hobby
• The death of a loved one
• A fun trip you took as a family
• Anything your kid wants to add!

You can be as creative or as simple as you want, just make sure that each event has a date attached to it, and the events are added in chronological order. Other fun things you could do:

• Display your timeline on the wall and keep adding to it as they grow up.
• Add newsworthy events that during their life such as the invention of new technology or the election of a president.
• Illustrate your timeline with photos, drawings, or any lightweight artifacts that could be fixed to it.

A timeline is a tool that visually represents important events in chronological order. They are often used in social studies classes to show when important events in history happened. This activity will not only help your child learn how create and read a timeline but provides the added benefit of showing your child how their life correlates with the history that’s happening right now!