I’m trying to think of ways to get Satori to fathom how very long ago the universe, the earth, and all were formed, as well as a general idea of the time relationships to each other. We started with an inexpensive and easy timeline. (I plan to make more elaborate timelines once we start our ancient history studies.)
I took a roll of calculator paper, and marked off one foot on a ruler for each billion years. Then we put it up on a long wall, our staircase was the perfect length. Satori then made quick little pictures of each major universe event.
Satori drawing the Big Bang
Now we have sketches for: the Big Bang, Galaxies/Stars, Sun, Earth, and First Life, all appropriately set upon our book, Born With a Bang!
All our universe event sketches
We headed to our Universe Wall Timeline and I told Satori how many billion of years ago each event happened, and she placed them in the appropriate place. (I had to strategically place our timeline high enough for our cats not to eat it, yet short enough for Satori to reach it. )
Big Bang ~ 13-15 billion years ago
It gives a great visual idea of how far apart universe events happened, and how our sun, galaxy, and earth all formed around the same time. We’ll get to see how life began, and how very small a time that life as we know it (mammals, humans) takes up space on our Universe Timeline.
Sun, galaxy and earth formed ~ 4.5 billion years ago
And here’s our Universe Timeline, up through everything we’ve studied so far! We’re tackling early life this week, so the last picture is a one-celled organism. We’ll likely make an Earth Timeline which will be a bit more condensed, we can also refer to our Charlie’s Playhouse Giant Timeline for this. In fact, Satori asked where the squishy animals were on our timeline, and I had to explain this is for the Universe, the beginning of our world as we know it.
Universe Timeline
What a great way to remind ourselves of the wonders of our universe and when events happened!
Universe Timeline for Kids
- 15 Billion Years Ago – Big Bang
- 12 Billion Years Ago – Milky Way Galaxy
- 6 Billion Years Ago – Our solar system and Sun forms
- 4.6 Billion Years Ago – Formation of Earth
- 3.5 Billion Years Ago – First Life
- 3.2 Billion Years Ago – Moon assumes present shape
- 3 Billion Years Ago – Photosynthesis, blue-green algae
Timelines can differ within a few billion years on the time of the Big Bang, and differ by a million years or less for other events. Here are other universe timelines:
- http://www.atgc.org/TimeLine/
- http://www.johnkyrk.com/evolution.html (very cool interactive timeline!)
- http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/times/
- http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/536
We’re about to head to Nederland to get a demonstration by our friends there on fossils and take a look at what they have. Then head to Boulder to go to the library to get a few books on big numbers so we can further explore how very big million and billion is!
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