Before and After: Chronological Order
What Is Chronological Order?
Chronological order is simply the order in which things happen, or the sequence in which we do certain actions.
Some steps only work if you do them the right way around. You put toothpaste on the brush first and then brush your teeth. Try switching it, and you will quickly see it does not work as well.
For grown-ups it feels obvious that socks go on before boots. For kids, though, the right order is not always so clear, especially when there are many steps to remember. On a cold winter morning, getting ready to go outside can mean putting on ten different pieces of clothing, from underwear to a snowsuit. What looks like stalling or fussing is often just confusion about where to begin.
That is why many parents prepare together with their kids the night before. They lay out the clothes in the correct order, ready to go. This simple trick helps mornings run more smoothly and makes the whole process a lot less stressful.
Why Does It Matter for Kids?
Research shows that kids naturally remember events in chronological order, but breaking that sequence into parts is not always easy for them.
The easiest question for them is “What happened first?”
A bit harder is “What happened last?”
Even more difficult is “What happened before this event?”
And the hardest of all is “What happened after this event?”
Children also reason more confidently about events that have already taken place than about those that are still to come. Tasks that involve predicting what will happen next add an extra layer of cognitive demand, since they call on imagination as well as memory.
Sequencing actions is also a key part of computational thinking. Studies suggest that reflecting on their own activities as a sequence of steps, or writing out simple “programs” for themselves or for others to follow, supports problem-solving skills and self-regulation. Kids learn to plan ahead, carry out steps in order, and then check the outcome.
Chronological thinking also connects closely to math learning: number order, operations, and logic. Research has found that practicing daily event ordering leads to measurable gains in formal math tests. Working with sequences of real-life events helps children understand the structure of a series — ideas like first/next, before/after — which in turn lays the groundwork for understanding the number line and the basic concept of numerical order.
How Do We Teach?
We start with simple everyday actions like getting dressed or putting toys away. In what order do the blocks go into the box? Which ring goes on the stacking tower first, and which one comes off first? How many things do you need to take out of your backpack before you can reach the flashlight?
Creative activities also break naturally into steps. Drawing a picture, making a collage, or carving a pumpkin for a holiday can all be seen as a sequence. Parents can even take photos while making scrambled eggs, then ask their kid in the evening to put the pictures back in the right order.
Kids also love turning sequences into adventures. A backyard or neighborhood quest with notes leading from one clue to the next is a great way to practice. Mazes work the same way. Imagine a hedgehog moving through a maze from above — you can place mushrooms along the way and ask in what order the hedgehog will collect them.
As kids get older, the challenges grow more complex. They might solve puzzles where a cube rolls across the floor, and they have to figure out which side ends up on top. These kinds of tasks build the habit of thinking ahead and keeping track of steps in the right sequence.
First Steps
Everyday Situations
We usually start with the easiest questions. Which goes on first, a sock or a boot? And which one do you take off first?
You can also show a character who is already dressed and ask kids to choose the correct order in which the clothes were put on.
Order of operations
Order the steps
Stacking toys work the same way. As kids slide rings onto a tower one after another, you can later give them pictures of the tower partway built and ask them to arrange the pictures in the right order.
Jars are another fun example. Imagine putting blocks into a jar one at a time. Kids are asked to pick the jar where the blocks were added in that order. After a while they notice something important: the first block always ends up at the bottom, which means it will be the very last to come out.
Or a task with fruit. Several fruits are placed on a plate, then taken away one by one. Kids need to match the pictures of the plate with the order in which the fruit was removed.
Stacking and unstacking
Order the steps
Transformations
Order the steps
Order of operations
Stacking and unstacking
Assemble pictures
Reducing set
Deep Understanding
Craft and Drawing
When kids are busy with everyday routines like washing up or setting the table, it can be fun to take photos of each stage. Later you can ask them to put the pictures back in order.
The same idea works with creative tasks. For example, making a picture of a car: first you stick on the body, then the wheels, and finally the windows.
Craft with stickers
Order the steps
Pumpkin carving is another clear example. First comes one eye, then the other, then the nose, and finally the mouth.
Drawings also take shape step by step. You can ask kids which version of the picture could have been the starting point, and how the image grew from there.
Sticker collages are especially useful because the order of steps is still visible in the finished picture. You can ask questions like: What would happen if we peeled off the top sticker? Which piece was added first? Or how does the order of adding pieces match the result we see now?
Order of operations
Order the steps
Order of operations
Order the steps
Order of operations with stickers
Place the stickers in order
Order of operations with stickers
Remove the top sticker
Confident Mastery
Paths and Movement
Sometimes a sequence of events plays out along a path. For example, a hedgehog walking through a maze finds mushrooms one after another in a specific order.
Order of operations
Path points in the maze
The same kind of question works when a path is shown on a picture with arrows or lines that guide the way through a more complex structure.
Numbers can also form a path. Kids may be asked to imagine what it looks like when the path moves from one number to the next in order — 1, 2, 3, and so on.
The challenges get trickier when movement is added in three dimensions. Kids might be asked to picture a cube rolling across a grid, turning forward or to the side. Which face of the cube will be on top after it rolls?
Algorithms
Mazes
Order of operations
The order of events
Order of operations
Order of numbers (up to 10)
Operations with shapes
Rolling shapes
Big Ideas
The simple story of socks and boots actually connects to some deep ideas in math.
Some operations can be swapped without changing the result. For example, adding 3 and then adding 2 gives the same outcome as adding 2 and then adding 3 — either way you end up with +5. But not all operations work like that. If you add 2 to 3 and then multiply by 7, you get (3 + 2) × 7 = 35. If you switch the order and multiply first, then add, you get 3 × 7 + 2 = 23. In algebra, this difference is described as commutative versus non-commutative operations. And in fact, most operations in math do not commute.
Getting dressed is another way to see it. Socks always go on before boots, but when you take them off, the order reverses — boots come off first, then socks. This mirrors the idea of inverse operations. If you want to undo (3 × 7) + 2 = 23 and get back to 3, you first undo the addition (subtract 2), then undo the multiplication (divide by 7), like (23 - 2) ÷ 7 = 3. Following the right order matters.
Mazes and rolling-cube puzzles lead into another area of mathematics: transformations of space, such as rotation, symmetry and translation. Kids will meet these more formally later on in geometry.
And sequencing itself is a big idea. A sequence of actions is nothing less than a program, or an algorithm. We write programs for ourselves when we make a to-do list. We write them for others — like a phone script that tells a receptionist who to transfer a call to. When we start the washing machine or the robot vacuum, we are running a program someone else has written. And of course, large-scale algorithms run the searches we make on the internet and drive the learning inside modern neural networks.
