Geologic Timeline

In February, our main lesson block topic is the Montessori Second Great Lesson: The Coming of Life. To begin, we first went over the formation and layers of the Earth, and then what was living on the planet during the Precambrian Time and the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Periods.

To help students understand the scale for all of this, we looked back at the 2026 Timeline of Life calendars which we made in December.

On Thursday, the students wrote down their first, second, and third choices for their report topics. Each person will make a backboard for just one of the Geologic Periods. We will be spending the next two weeks on these, and then putting them all in chronological order for the parents to walk through at the History Fair!

Here, if you're not familiar with it, is the terminology for the time periods:

Eon	Era	Period	Epoch	Old Periods
Phanerozoic Eon 541 mya to Present	Cenozoic Era 66 mya to Present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present	Holocene .012 to present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present
			Pleistocene 2.58 to .012 mya
		Neogene 23 to2.58 mya	Pliocene 5.3 to 2.58 mya	Tertiary 66 to 2.58 mya
			Miocene 23 to 5.3 mya
		Paleogene 66 to 23 mya	Oligocene 34 to 23 mya
			Eocene 56 to 34 mya
			Paleocene 66 to 56 mya
	Mesozoic Era 252 mya to 66 mya	Cretaceous 145 mya to 66 mya
		Jurassic 201 to 145 mya
		Triassic 252 to 201 mya
	Paleozoic Era 541 to 252 mya	Permian 299 to 252 mya
		Carboniferous 359 to 299 mya
		Devonian 419 to 359 mya
		Silurian 444 to 419 mya
		Ordovician 485 to 444 mya
		Cambrian 541 to 485 mya
Precambrian Time 4,600 to 541 mya		Ediacaran Period 635 to 541 mya
	Proterozoic Era 2,500 to 541 mya
	Archaean 4,000 to 2,500 mya
	Hadean 4,600 to 4,000 mya

The links in the table above are to fossils-facts-and-finds.com, where you can learn about each section of time. The children will be using their books on Geologic Time for their research. There is one per period. Here is a FREE sample in PDF form: The Cretaceous Period. As a Montessori teacher, these books by Doug and Claudia Mann are invaluable! Illustrated by David Cobb.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Photos - Shelters & Roman Numerals week 1

Beginning the Shelters / Wonderful Houses Around the World block for the older group; continuing the Quality of Numbers block for the younger.

Here are the photos from our introduction to Roman Numerals in week 8.

Here is my complete list of our stories, poems, riddles, art projects, and hands-on activities for this year's Quality of Numbers block, 1 to 10 / I to X.

Week 9 for us was the week that began on October 30th. Here are some more blog posts that may be helpful:

List of Shelters 2023

The No-Fault Classroom / The Alien Lessons

Grammar & Charlotte's Web

Art History: Louise Bourgeois

This week we continued Charlotte's Web by E.B. White as our lunchtime read aloud. We also read Thunderstorm by Arthur Geisert as part of Morning Math (this wordless picture book only tells you the time each illustration took place). The older children had to show each of the times on an analog clock.

In Morning Math we also read The King, the Dragon, and the Witch by Jerome Corsi to introduce our lessons on Elapsed Time. In this fun but out-of-print book, the witch curses the king to have something bad happen to him each day at exactly 4 o'clock (one day his throne breaks, one day all the books fall off his library shelves, etc.). How much time is it until 4 o'clock???

We did a lot of reading for our main lesson blocks. For Roman Numerals, we read Peter and the North Wind retold by Freya Littledale (4 / IV), The Pea Blossom retold by Amy Lowry Poole and The Princess and the Pea retold by Rachel Isadora (5 / V), and Song of the Hermit Thrush: An Iroquois Legend (Native American Lore and Legends) retold by Gloria Dominic (6 / VI).

For Shelters, we read about two kinds of schools (Steamboat School by Deborah Hopkinson and Rain School by James Rumford) and then started on houses with Building Manhattan by Laura Vila (for wigwam & longhouse).

Here are some photos from week 9:

we make our list of goals at Morning Meeting

the three dried beans have sprouted!

one child draws the three bean seedlings...

and the other draws the three treasures Jack got from the giant

a knitted gnome is nearly complete

he's only missing his beard

done!

a kitten is also born today

squiggly glue lines for the Four Winds

North / East / South / West

dividing the classroom for a lesson on Time Zones

Time Zones Mini Anchor Charts
FREE on TpT

the Four Winds Artwork dries clear

this is so simple to do and always gives such a great effect!

looking for patterns in the Roman numerals for 4 and 5

now we see that 4 is IV because it's one-from-five

what do you think the Roman numeral for 6 will be?

special sensory play for Halloween

thank you to Ms. Megan for lending us this book!

getting out ALL of the beautiful Grimm's Spiel und Holz rainbow wooden blocks to make a palace for "The Princess and the Pea"

Large Stepped Pyramid Building Blocks

Nautilus Puzzle

1001 Nights Building Blocks

Color Chart Rally Blocks Set

Elasped Time Task Cards
$2.50 on TpT

adding Steamboat School to the MLB

beautiful work!

she is so proud of her balanced day!

they spend several weeks on the Elapsed Time task cards,
working with partners to do a few problems each day

this gives enough time for the new concept to really sink in

getting out the Stamp Game to help solve a problem

this problem calls for The Clock Exercise

our next shelter: wigwam & longhouse

so eager to sew up her Piggie!

this week in Science Club, marble-powered cars

they take three trial runs, measuring the distance each time, and
calculate the average

designing a folded index card "car"

designing a file folder ramp for the marble to roll down

the marble goes into the index card car and it rolls away!

we got the best results with 4x6" index cards and shooter marbles

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!