Have a Happy Thanksgiving with a Free Video Lesson!

The Clock of Eras is one of the more important and interesting lessons in the Montessori elementary class. This material helps students grasp the vast scale of time, offering them a visual and tactile way to understand the passage of history. The Clock of Eras is a colorful, circular chart divided into sections, each representing a different era in the history of the Earth. From the formation of the Earth billions of years ago to the present day, this clock gives students a visual way to see where human history fits into the broader narrative of the planet's existence.

Using this chart, children can see that the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old and that human history (measured in thousands of years) is but a small slice in the greater scale of time. This gives students a clear perspective on how small and relatively recent human civilization is compared to the vastness of Earth's history. This is especially impactful for elementary-aged children, who are in a sensitive period for developing abstract thinking. When students can visualize time on such a grand scale, they begin to perceive history not as a series of isolated events but as a continuous, interconnected process. They understand that each moment in time is part of a larger, ever-unfolding story.

The Clock of Eras breaks down history into digestible chunks. Children can understand that life on Earth began long before humans appeared, with events like the formation of the first seas, the emergence of the first single-celled organisms, the age of dinosaurs, and the arrival of early humans. By organizing history into eras, the clock makes it easier for children to contextualize the different stages of development—both of the planet and human civilization.

By playing the Clock of Eras game, your students will play games representing the periods in intervals proportional to the clock's time. Instead of visually seeing the clock as a fractional piece, they will temporally experience switching from one period to another. They will feel how relatively short or long a period is compared to another. During the Phanerozoic Era (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic, and Neozoic), they listened and acted out cues instead of playing games because the time intervals went so quickly. By the end of the game, the students will be shocked when they become humans for a couple of seconds of the whole game!

I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been following my work by releasing this video tutorial free on YouTube. If you like this video tutorial, I have almost thirty more in the website's Member's Area. Thanks again for taking this journey to evolve PE into an extension of the Montessori classroom!