#879. Creating Life Maps

Reading/Writing, level: Elementary
Posted Sun Mar 7 19:06:27 PST 1999 by Staci Brown (skbrown@freeway.net).
Gaylord Intermediate School, Gaylord, MI USA
Materials Required: information about student's life, paper, pencil, markers
Activity Time: 1-2 weeks
Concepts Taught: timeline, writing paragraphs, poems, etc.

I created this activity while we were studying timelines in Social Studies. I wanted my students to understand how events are supposed to go in order on a timeline. So, I incorporated many of my critical learnings (objectives) for Lang. Arts into this project. I started doing one part of their lives each day.
DAY 1: My First Years Students brought in information about life as a baby. These events had to be put in order from birth to 1-2 years (crawling, walking, talking, etc).
DAY 2: Preschool paragraphs. We made handprints using paint and wrote the final copy paragraphs on the back. Students wrote complete paragraphs (main idea, details, closing sentence) about preschool or when they were toddlers, as not everyone went to preschool.
DAY 3: Kindergarten paragarphs (narratives). Students had to use "I/my" in the paragraphs. I checked for main idea, details, closing sentence, and indenting.
DAY 4: First grade. Students made a mini book about their favorite childhood story. Title/author/picture on the front. Inside: characters, what happened in the book, and why it was their favorite.
DAY 5: Second grade descriptive paragraph of their teacher in 2nd grade. Of course, we discussed using adjectives, the 5 senses, etc. to make a paragraph descriptive. Students followed correct paragraph structure and drew a picture of the teacher.
DAY 6: Third grade. Used a Venn diagram to compare 3rd/4th grade events, ideas, etc.
DAY 7: Fourth grade. Acrostic poem using the letters in fourth grade.
Also, in the beginning, we wrote autobiopoems about themselves. They began with their name, then added what they love, give to others, # of siblings, where they live, etc. They ended with a nickname or their last name. (you could change this to use whatever you would like about the student).
I am just finishing grading these now. We are going to assemble the pieces into the timelines this week. We will either arrange them on posterboard or string them like a clothesline. It's been fun for them to share their lives with me and each other. Some have added pictures as well.