SUBJECT: Social Studies, Math and Religion
GRADE LEVELS: 4-8

OBJECTIVES:
Students will create a personal timeline.
Students will become aware of religious events in their lives.
Students will learn to draw a line to a scale (ex: 3 inches = 1 year).

TIME: Two 30-40 minute class periods with time between for students to gather needed information.

MATERIALS:
Kids’ Explore America’s Catholic Heritage Books
Paper and materials to make timelines

ACTIVITIES:
The students should be familiar with the timeline in the History chapter (p.1-37) and the seven sacraments in the Growing up Catholic Chapter (p. 53-75). This can be done by a class review at the beginning of class or in previous assignments.
Have students read Martha’s life p.74-75 and discuss how the sacraments played an important part in her life. Talk about how you could create a timeline for Martha’s life. You may want to do create a timeline of Martha’s life together as a group.
Tell students should create a timeline that will highlight religious moments in their lives similar to the one you made with them. Give students time to gather information at home, maybe over a weekend.
When students meet to start creating their timelines, help them determine their scale (6” = 1 year) and use a ruler to begin plotting their life on the line. (Calculator ribbon is one possibility for paper to use.)
When they are ready to decorate and embellish their lines, direct them to use one color to highlight religious moments and a different color to highlight other important events. Students can then see how the religious and not religious are related.

ESTENSION:
For students who have not yet received many sacraments, their religious moments could include events they have participated in such as weeding, Baptisms, funerals or special holiday Masses.