Parent & Educator Guide

Talia and the Time Train

Purpose: Talia and the Time Train uses an imaginative journey to help children explore time, memory, and how choices shape relationships and the future. This guide provides simple science connections, SEL alignment, discussion questions, and ready-to-use activities for home or classroom use.

The Science of the Time Train Metaphor

1) The Arrow of Time

In the story, the train moves forward on a single track. Just like time moves from past to present to future. The Now car is where Talia stands. The Past cars hold memories. The Future cars are empty because they have not happened yet.

2) Memories vs. Real Moments

Talia can see past events through the windows, but she isn’t inside those cars anymore. This helps children understand, memories can be felt and learned from, but we can’t physically re-live a moment.

3) Why She Can’t Go Back

Talia wonders if she could jump off the Now car and reach a Past car. The voice explains she would have to move faster than the speed of light. In our real world, scientists haven’t found a way for people to do that, so traveling back into the past isn’t something we can do. (In stories, we can imagine it to help explain big ideas.)

4) Choice, Cause, and Effect

Only in the Now car can Talia make new memories and help decide what future cars will look like. When she chooses to apologize and think before she speaks, the story shows how one choice can shape what comes next.

SEL Skills Alignment (CASEL-Aligned Competencies)

Self-Awareness

Talia notices how different memories feel joy, excitement, regret. Children practice naming feelings like disappointment, pride, and hope.

Self-Management

Talia moves from wishing she could erase a moment to choosing a better action now apologizing and thinking before speaking. Children learn they can’t change the past, but they can change what they do next.

Social Awareness

Remembering her friend’s hurt feelings helps Talia understand that words affect others. Children learn to consider how someone else might feel.

Relationship Skills

Talia apologizes clearly. Her friend listens. They decide to play again. The story models how honesty, empathy, and changed behavior can repair trust.

Responsible Decision-Making

Talia uses a hard memory to guide a better choice. Children practice thinking about outcomes instead of reacting in the moment.

Discussion Questions (Ages 7–10)

If you had a Time Train, what are three Past cars you’d be curious to look into? Why?
Is there a Past car that feels uncomfortable, like Talia’s? What could it teach you about what to do now?
What does the Now car represent in your life today at home, at school, or with friends?
The Future cars are empty. What moments would you like to fill your Future cars with?
How did apologizing change Talia’s Time Train? How might apologizing help one of your relationships?

Classroom & Home Activities

Activity 1: Draw Your Time Train

Draw three connected cars: Past, Now, and Future. In each car, add a picture or words for:

One important memory
One thing happening right now
One hope or goal for the future

Activity 2: Choice → Future Car Map

Pick one small choice from today (how you talk to a friend, how you handle frustration). Draw or write one Future car that could come from that choice. Include feelings and outcomes.

Activity 3: Repairing a Past Car

Discuss a time someone made a mistake and repaired it with an apology or changed behavior. Create a “Before” and “After”, one car showing the hurt, and one car showing the repair.

Activity 4: Time Train Reflection Circle

In a circle, each child shares:

One Past car they feel proud of
One Future car they hope to build

Key message: Everyone always has a Now car where better choices can start.

Key Message for Adults: This story gives children a concrete way to think about time: the past cannot be changed, the present is where choices happen, and the future is still being built. With open conversations and simple activities, children can connect memory, emotion, and responsibility , one Now moment at a time.

The Time Train Stations Puzzle

Station Coordinates

Train Station A: 29.9792, 31.1342
Train Station B: -17.8729, 59.5576
Train Station C: 1.0373, 112.2141
Train Station D: 55.5577, 102.1241

Train Station A: 29.9792° N, 31.1342° E (Giza Plateau, Egypt)

This point drops you onto the edge of the Giza Plateau, where modern city life can feel only a few streets away, yet the view is dominated by stone geometry built more than four millennia ago. It’s a hinge between two kinds of time: traffic lights and phone screens on one side, and a landscape designed for sunlight, shadows, and sky direction on the other.

Where bedrock became a building site

Standing here, you’re on the Giza Plateau’s Middle Eocene limestone, often identified as part of the Mokattam Formation. The same regional stone used throughout the pyramid complex.
The Great Pyramid’s core blocks were largely cut from local limestone quarried at Giza, including a major quarry area just south of Khufu’s pyramid.
The monument is literally anchored into the plateau at least one chamber system was cut into the bedrock beneath the pyramid.

A monument taller than memory

The Great Pyramid originally rose to about 146.6 meters, making it the tallest human made structure for more than 3,800 years.
Its faces were set at a slope of about 51°50′40″, a precise angle repeated with astonishing consistency up all four sides.

A compass drawn with stars

The latitude 29.9792° N is internet famous for echoing the speed of light, but that numerical match depends on modern units and modern precision. It’s a coincidence people notice after the fact, not an ancient code.
What the builders truly mastered was direction. The Great Pyramid is aligned to the cardinal points with accuracy on the order of a few arc minutes, and researchers argue this could have been achieved by careful sky observations, including circumpolar stars.

Streets, satellites, and Orion’s Belt

From these coordinates you can grasp the famous trio of pyramids on the plateau in a single sweep of the eye. Three peaks of stone standing above a city of rooftops, antennas, and headlights.
Some modern writers compare their layout to Orion’s Belt, but that “Orion correlation” idea is widely treated as a modern, disputed interpretation, not an established ancient blueprint.

Whether you look up at stars or down at stone, this place still delivers the same feeling. The present pressing right up against the deep past, with almost no space between them.

Train Station B: 17.8729° S, 59.5576° E (Indian Ocean , Mascarene Plateau region)

Notable places (within ~500 km; Réunion within ~600 km)

Mauritius Aapravasi Ghat (UNESCO World Heritage) (Port Louis)
Mauritius Le Morne Cultural Landscape (UNESCO World Heritage) (SW Mauritius)
Réunion (France) Pitons, cirques and remparts of Réunion Island (UNESCO World Heritage) (~600 km)

This ocean point floats above a bright, shallow shelf the Mascarene Plateau where turquoise banks can suddenly drop into deep, dark water. Nearby are islands shaped by volcano and wind, and shores where human history holds both pain and perseverance.

An underwater balcony in the Indian Ocean

The Mascarene Plateau stretches roughly ~2,000 km, with broad shallow banks before the seafloor drops to around 4,000 m in places.
Scientists have proposed that parts of this region may include fragments of an ancient microcontinent often called Mauritia , hypothesis supported by geological evidence (including ancient mineral grains found in Mauritius).

Aapravasi Ghat: a gateway of a new diaspora

Aapravasi Ghat preserves the remains of an immigration depot where the British began their “great experiment” in indentured labour in 1834.
Over 462,000 migrants passed through the site between 1834 and 1920, connecting Mauritius to a wider Indian Ocean story.

Le Morne: a mountain of fugitives

Le Morne Brabant is closely linked to marron (maroon) communities enslaved people who escaped into the wild.
Oral traditions include tragic stories connected to the cliffs. Today Le Morne stands as a symbol of resistance and freedom.

Réunion: amphitheatres of fire and cloud

Réunion is famous for dramatic volcanic peaks and giant basins called cirques, ringed by cliffs and ridges (“remparts”).
One volcano is dormant (Piton des Neiges) and one is famously active (Piton de la Fournaise), shaping the island through lava, rain, landslides, and time.

Train Station C: 1.0373° N, 112.2141° E (Borneo)

Notable places (within ~500 km; Sangkulirang–Mangkalihat within ~700 km)

Niah National Park’s Caves Complex (UNESCO World Heritage) deep human prehistory in rainforest caves
Gunung Mulu National Park (UNESCO World Heritage) karst peaks and immense cave systems
Sangkulirang–Mangkalihat Karst (UNESCO Tentative List) (~600–700 km) major prehistoric rock art region

This “corner” sits near the equator in northern Borneo, in rainforest where caves and cliffs preserve a long record of people learning to live with a powerful, living forest.

A rainforest crossroads of humanity

The Niah caves include the famous “Deep Skull” (often described around ~40,000 years old, with estimates varying by study).
The caves preserve layered evidence of life across time burials and cultural deposits and later traditions such as boat-shaped coffins, turning the site into a timeline written in stone.

Caverns the size of cities

Gunung Mulu is a limestone world of towers and sinkholes, built into massive cave networks.
Sarawak Chamber is among the largest known cave chambers on Earth (often cited around ~600 m long, ~415 m wide, ~80 m high).
Other caves such as Deer Cave and Clearwater Cave are celebrated for their extraordinary scale and length among major cave systems in Asia.

Rock art in a stone labyrinth

The Sangkulirang–Mangkalihat karst contains thousands of paintings across many rock shelter sites.
Research has shown that some of this rock art including hand stencils and animal imagery dates back at least ~40,000 years, alongside many later phases.
The walls hold handprints, people, and animals, layers of meaning that make the cliffs feel like a storybook written by many generations.

The island that launched journeys

Borneo is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia.
In the deep history of human movement through Maritime Southeast Asia, sites like Niah help show how people lived, adapted, and traveled through this region over immense spans of time.

Train Station D: 55.5577° N, 102.1241° E (Siberia , Greater Baikal Region)

Notable places (within ~500 km)

Lake Baikal (UNESCO World Heritage) oldest and deepest major freshwater lake; unique ecosystem
Pribaikalsky National Park protected shores; includes Olkhon Island
Olkhon Island Shaman Rock (Cape Burkhan / Shamanka), famed sacred landmark on Baikal
Circum-Baikal Railway historic engineering route along the shore
Taltsy Museum (near Irkutsk) major open air museum of wooden architecture and regional culture

This Siberian point sits in the wider orbit of Lake Baikal, where taiga forests meet water so deep it feels like an inland ocean, and where geology, climate, and tradition all shape the same landscape.

The restless ground

Baikal lies within the Baikal Rift Zone, where the Earth’s crust is being pulled apart.
Scientists study this region as a living example of slow continental stretching the kind of process that, over immense geologic time, can lead toward the formation of new ocean basins.

An ancient, deep “time capsule”

Baikal is the world’s deepest lake at about 1,642 meters and among the oldest, often estimated at ~20–25+ million years.
Roughly 20% of Earth’s unfrozen freshwater is stored here, making it feel less like “a lake” and more like a hidden sea ringed by forest.

A lake that bends the weather

Because such a vast water body warms and cools slowly, Baikal moderates local climate often making nearby areas milder than surrounding inland Siberia.
Conditions can still shift quickly around the shore when wind, ice, and temperature changes collide.

Shaman Rock and the “heart” of Baikal

Olkhon Island is Baikal’s largest island and a major cultural landmark.
Shaman Rock (Cape Burkhan) is a famous sacred site in local tradition; stories describe a powerful spirit associated with Baikal, and some historic practices restricted who could approach the cave (accounts vary, so it’s best presented as tradition).

A museum of wooden ghosts

Taltsy Museum preserves historic wooden buildings of the region homes, towers, chapels, and other structures, many relocated to protect them from loss.
Walking through it can feel like stepping into a carefully gathered memory of life along Baikal’s shores.

Fact or Fiction- The Swimmers of Lake Baikal

They are reports of aliens and a possible alien base at the bottom of Lake Baikal .

Train Station A: Open in Google Maps
Train Station B: Open in Google Maps
Train Station C: Open in Google Maps
Train Station D: Open in Google Maps
All four stations are essentially the same distance from Kailasa Temple, with differences of only a few meters.
Distances from Kailasa Temple
Using the haversine formula on the given coordinates, the great circle distances from Kailasa Temple 20.0240, 75.1790 to each station are.
Station A: 4545.5959 km
Station B: 4545.5979 km
Station C: 4545.6017 km
Station D: 4545.5987 km
Are they the same distance?
The maximum difference between any pair of stations is under 6 meters over a distance of about 4545.6 km. For all practical purposes (e.g., mapping, navigation), they can be treated as being at the same distance from Kailasa Temple.

New Jewish children’s book - Talia and the Time Train

Talia and the Time Train