When students retell stories, they practice sequencing. The teacher models the process by retelling a story that has previously been read aloud in class. As she’s telling the story, she writes a list of chronological events on a chart for all the students to see. Students read a new story together. When they’re finished reading, they discuss the story as the teacher writes the main events in order. Students then work with partners, retelling the story to each other.
Students prepare a set of directions for common tasks, such as brushing teeth, making a sandwich or dribbling a basketball. The teacher assigns a specific task to each student, or allows them to choose their own topics. Students present their directions in front of the class -- the teacher chooses one other student to follow the directions as they are given. This idea carries over to other tasks in the classroom, such as following rules. Students can role play the sequence of steps they must follow for end-of-the-day procedures or fire drills.
The teacher chooses a picture book to read to the students and makes photo copies of illustrations of the main events. After the teacher reads the book to the class, she distributes the illustrations to random students. The boys and girls work together to arrange the pictures in the correct story sequence. They make changes until all students agree they are in the right order. Use the same process with chapter books, making sentence strips ahead of time.
This activity works well with partners. Students fold a paper into quarters. They draw a picture in each quadrant to represent the steps of an activity, such as a child eating a bowl of cereal: the empty bowl and spoon, pouring in the cereal, adding the milk and eating the cereal. Students cut the paper into four quadrants and challenge other students to put the sequence of steps in correct order. More advanced students can create six or eight steps.
Students work in groups of two or three. Each group needs magazines, scissors, glue, crayons and a poster board. The students either draw or cut out pictures from the magazines to represent the beginning sound of each letter of the alphabet. They glue the pictures to the poster board in alphabetical order. This exercise can also be adapted to chronological order of numbers.