We have officially begun our school year in 3A!  Here are some pictures of my final classroom set up… I hope you enjoy them!

This week we will be taking a look at timelines.  I have a timeline hanging in the classroom that takes up three walls of the room.  I introduce the idea of timelines to the kids by giving each team a set of cards with some “major” historical events on them (the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the founding of our school, the peak of immigration through Ellis Island which they studied in second grade, the sailing of the Mayflower, the first Iditarod race, etc.) and asking the students to put the events in chronological order.  The conversations that the boys have while trying to do the task are always a trip, as are their rationales for the order they settle upon.  Once they have them in order, I challenge the teams to put a date on the top of each card.  Once we discuss the accurate responses, we add them to our classroom timeline where they serve as anchor points.  Throughout the year, as we read about significant events or learn about them in Social Studies, we add them to the timeline.  The timeline provides a picture of how our studies time out in history. It helps the students make connections between time and place that they wouldn’t always see otherwise. I am often surprised at how close or how far apart events took place as well as by comparing what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time in history!

Here is a quick assignment sheet that could serve as an introduction or review of
setting up, reading, and interpreting timelines based on the events leading to the establishment of the Iditarod National Historic Trail.  I took my information from the Iditarod Historic Trail Visitor Guide that is published by Alaska Geographic which can be downloaded here:  http://www.alaskageographic.org/static/281/visitor-guide-download-page

As the Trail Turns