Last week we introduced Montessori’s Second Great Lesson: the Coming of Life. The Great Lessons are a series of stories designed to spark the fire of curiosity surrounding science, history, communication, numbers, geography and more. These stories along with key lessons serve as a framework for further explorations throughout the year.
Materials
With the 2nd Great Lesson, I retold this version here, and I read From Lava to Life: The Universe Tells Our Earth Story. The artwork in the book is stunning and fun to discuss. Our timeline is from Montessori Services, and if you can swing it, I definitely recommend this version. I went back and forth between a few sellers, but I just really prefer how clean and simple it looks.
We also have these super cool fossils we’ve been using with the timeline.
We used this timeline last year as well.
Long Black Strip
I presented the lesson as told in this Montessori Services article (and I recommend reading the backstory to understand what I’m talking about if you don’t already know). In short, there is a very long (typically 100 feet or so in length) black strip that is unrolled as a visual representation of the time following Earth’s creation; it was too hot to sustain life, but then the rains came, it cooled and could sustain life. When the end of the strip is reached there is a narrow, white line that represents the coming of human life. This is a precursor to the Third Great Lesson: Coming of Humans and the Hand Chart.
Presentation
To tell our story we ventured out on a muddy-puddle kind of day to a 300 year-old oak. The kids were extremely impressed by both the tree and the lesson.
I have to say, rolling up the strip is not my favorite thing. It eventually got tangled up around my jogging stroller in the trunk of the car. So beware of that. But for $12 (vs the $50+ authentic version) it was a solid DIY project that was extremely easy to make.
Making the Long Black Strip
I found a 1 1/2 inch black satin ribbon, 50 yards, on Amazon. I trimmed mine to be closer to the standard 100 foot length, but I don’t feel that’s necessary. To make the white tip I folded up a piece of card stock and hot glued it to the end. To make it easier to unwind, I used a wooden dowel (ok I used a spindle from our spindle box) stuck through the center of the roll. The only negative parts of the project are unrolling and rolling the strip after you attach the white piece at the end (it has to be the last part unwound). This can be time-consuming.
My husband found a hack for that. We’re lazy, what can I say.
Be forewarned, 50 yards is a lot of ribbon. Guess that’s precisely why it imparts such a strong impressionistic lesson. 🙂
