Montessori Material Focus: The Timeline of Life

The Timeline of Life is a favorite among Montessori elementary students! Tracing the development of animals, plants and the planet Earth from the earliest Eras to the coming of human beings, the Timeline is a beautiful visual representation of the passage of time. This traditional Montessori material, used by classrooms around the world, gives the child a visual, dramatic means through which to comprehend the major events in the development of life of Earth.

A few of the ways that the Timeline of Life is used include:

• To gather information for research projects about prehistoric animals
• To trace the rise and fall of extinct species, such as dinosaurs or trilobites
• To expose children to technical scientific vocabulary
• To illustrate how species have adapted and changed over time
• To provide a concrete example of scientific classification, by providing the names a species Class, Order and Family
• To fill in a blank Timeline of Life with pictures and information about animals
• For matching pictures and objects to their counterpart on the Timeline of Life
• For the study a specific Era in time
• To aid in developing an imaginative vision of the history of life on Earth
• To grow in humility and love for the planet, by recognizing the relatively short span of human life