Biography Timeline: Notes for Teachers and Parents

1. At a glance

   Grades

   Written for Second Grade. Works well for Third Grade too.

   Time

   About six to eight sessions: what a timeline is and finding big events, planning (alongside reading time in class), three or four sessions to build, and a last one to check and print.

   You need

   A biography for each student, sticky notes, computers or Chromebooks with PowerPoint or Google Slides, and a color printer for the finished timelines.

   Students will

   Pick out important events from a challenging text, put them in time order, plan before building, and lay out a page with equal boxes, text boxes and pictures.

2. Where this fits

   Each spring, second graders read their first real biography during reading time. Each student chooses the person and the book, and the reading is often a stretch for their grade level. This project helps them organize what they learn, and it ends with a class book of timelines, one for each famous person.

   In the lab, projects follow three strands that weave together through the year: productivity tools (office tools, image creation and editing, video), STEM (spreadsheets, programming, robotics, building web sites), and research with ways of reporting that go beyond written text. This project sits in the research strand and leans heavily on productivity skills.

   Second Grade is where students begin to use PowerPoint heavily, but not as a slide show. Here a single slide is a page layout tool, a graphic organizer, and a simple infographic. That takes careful research and planning toward a specific result, not endless scrolling, which is why planning comes before building.

3. Choosing a biography

   • Let students choose. Interest carries them through a hard book.
   • Check that the book has dates. Some picture-book biographies tell a wonderful story with very few years in it. Many biographies for children include a timeline page at the back, which is a great help.
   • Series that work well at this age include picture-book biographies such as Ordinary People Change the World (Brad Meltzer) and Little People, BIG DREAMS, and early readers such as National Geographic Kids Readers. Strong readers, or a grown-up reading along, can handle the Who Was? chapter books.
   • Your school librarian can pull a cart of biographies at different reading levels before the project starts.

4. Teaching students to find the big events

   Young readers tend to copy whole sentences, or to treat every fact as equally important. The story and the sorting game teach two questions to ask about any fact:

   1. Does it have a date? (A year, or an age such as when she was 10.)
   2. Did it change the person’s life, or the world?

   A big event gets a yes to both. The practice person is Amelia Earhart, so students learn the method before they apply it to their own books. One card is tricky on purpose: Amelia saw an airplane at a fair when she was 10, but she was not impressed, so it has a date but did not change her life. It makes a good class discussion.

   • Watch the story together on a big screen. Press Pause after each question and let the class answer out loud.
   • Then let students play the sorting game on their own or with a partner.
   • While reading, students put a sticky note on each page with a big event and write just the year and a few words.
   • Aim for six to eight events. Birth is usually the first event. For a person who is still living, the last event can be something recent.
   • Clue words help: born, first, moved, became, won, built, invented, and any year or age.

5. The Event Planner

   • For each event, students write when it happened, a few words about what happened, and a picture idea. The picture idea makes the building sessions much faster.
   • Students can move events up and down, or press Put them in order by year.
   • The plan is saved only in that browser on that device. On shared computers, have students print their plan at the end of each session.
   • Prefer paper? Print the planner with nothing typed in it for a blank worksheet.

6. Building the timeline

   • Start with a blank layout so nothing gets in the way.
   • Draw one box, then copy and paste it. Copying is what keeps every box the same size, and second graders are proud when they discover it.
   • Use Distribute Horizontally (PowerPoint: Shape Format, Align) or Arrange, Distribute (Google Slides) for even spacing, and Align Top so the boxes line up.
   • Dates and events go in their own text boxes. Students make one, then copy and paste it and change the words.
   • Pictures: show students how to resize from a corner so pictures are not stretched. Choose pictures together, or give a short list, since an open image search can turn up things you would not choose.
   • Undo (Ctrl+Z, or Command+Z on a Mac) rescues a lot of moments.
   • The How to Build a Timeline page has a spot for a short video for each part. Upload build-part1.mp4, build-part2.mp4 and build-part3.mp4 to the project folder and they appear automatically.

7. The checklist

   The checklist on the main page lists everything a top-level timeline includes. Students tap each item as they finish it, which turns the rubric into a set of goals they can see. There is no option for an unfinished project: every student works until every item is checked, with help along the way.

   Check marks are saved only in that browser. Students can type their name and print the checklist to turn in with their timeline.

8. The class book

   • Print each timeline in color, landscape, one per page.
   • Order the pages alphabetically by the famous person’s name, or by birth year for a timeline of timelines.
   • Add a cover and bind the book with a comb binder or rings. Each student can also keep a copy in a biography portfolio.
   • Families love seeing these. Parents are often amazed at what seven-year-olds can design.

9. Saving and privacy

   • The story, the game, the planner and the checklist run in the browser. Nothing is sent anywhere and there are no accounts.
   • The read-aloud uses the voice built into the device.
   • The YouTube videos load from YouTube only after a student presses play, using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode.

10. At home

    • Pick a biography together at the library and read it a little each day.
    • Ask your child the two questions as you read: Does it have a date? Did it change the person’s life?
    • Google Slides is free with a Google account, so you do not need PowerPoint.
    • Try a family version: a timeline of your child’s own life, with a photo for each big event.

11. Standards

    • Common Core Reading, Informational Text RI.2.3: describe the connection between a series of historical events in a text.
    • C3 Framework D2.His.1.K-2: create a chronological sequence of multiple events.
    • ISTE Standards for Students: Knowledge Constructor and Creative Communicator.

12. Resources

    • National Air and Space Museum: Women in Aviation and Space (opens in a new tab)Stories, pictures and programs, including Amelia Earhart.

    Your school or public library is the best resource for this project: biographies at many reading levels, and a librarian who loves helping students choose.

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