The Story of Mammals: From the dawn of life to the present day

This material gives you a rich source of stories and images for telling the story of mammals. It includes a 76-page book with 17 lessons, directions for making timelines of the Phanerozoic Eon and the Cenozoic Era, a pronunciation guide, and a list of books for further study. There are 84 image cards that children can place on the timelines, along with “event” cards that describe important happenings. The first four lessons have accompanying text cards to place on the timeline as well.

Why does one need to tell the story of mammals? It is an important part of understanding our history. The mammal story is a bridge from the timeline of life to the story of humans. In the time since the dinosaurs became extinct, mammals have undergone tremendous changes. The timeline of life usually has such a short portion for the Cenozoic Era that few of the amazing mammals can be shown. As you tell this story, you will also introduce children to the major lineages of mammals and to important principles of evolution.  

This material is available as files that you print. Here are the printing supplies and instructions.

Book: For single-sided printing, 76 pages of letter-sized paper– print in black and white.

Image cards: 21 sheets of letter-sized cardstock or heavy photo paper – print in color and cut to make 84 quarter-page sized cards.

Text cards: Four pages of cardstock or heavy photo paper – print in color and cut to make 16 quarter-page sized cards.

Event cards: Three pages of cardstock or heavy paper – print in color. Cut these pages into cards that are about 0.75-1 inch wide and 4.5 inches long.