Happy New Year! Our children have a different sense of time than we do as adults. Have you noticed that on a playground 10 minutes can last past an hour? In fact, most children don’t understand the concept of time until they are past six years old. We build our innate sense of time by exploring our world and experiencing the passage of time.

This year our Lower Elementary students constructed a personal timeline to explore their individual passage in time. Ms. Marsha began the lesson by sharing her timeline from her birth in Trinidad; to her migration to California where her husband, Andre, was stationed with the U.S. Air Force; to her eventual settlement in San Antonio. The students had many questions for her and loved seeing her mementos.

Then it was their turn. Children brought things from home and built long timelines with paper, scissors, tape, and glue. Each prepared a timeline recording the passing years and calculating their own age at that year. They loved sharing photos (each timeline included pictures of the cutest babies we’d ever seen) and precious personal items with their friends. When the presentation was complete, students were excited to take the timelines home to share.

Creating timelines helped students explore their own passage through time and helped us build our community and understanding of each other. Building this linear timeline helped the student begin to put time into an understandable and concrete form. One step in understanding a very complex and abstract idea. We look forward to the new year and new ideas to explore.