Sequence Chart Templates

Free printable sequence chart templates as PDFs. Numbered boxes and arrows for steps in order. No sign-up and no email needed.

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Sequence charts are for anything that happens in an order that matters — the steps of a procedure, the events of a story, the stages of a process, the instructions for a recipe. Boxes joined by arrows make the order explicit in a way a numbered list somehow does not, and the fixed number of boxes forces a useful decision: which steps are big enough to count. Students who list fourteen steps for making a sandwich learn something real when the sheet gives them five boxes.

Blank sequence charts in several shapes — four, five and six linked boxes running left to right or top to bottom, with arrows printed between them. Boxes are ruled for writing, and some versions leave the top third of each box open for a small drawing. First, next, then and finally labels appear on the versions aimed at younger writers. Black and white, US Letter.

Graphic Organizers Sequence Chart Blank Graphic Organizers Sequence Chart BlankDownload PDF ↓ Graphic Organizers Sequence Chart Prompted Graphic Organizers Sequence Chart PromptedDownload PDF ↓

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Frequently asked questions

How many boxes should a sequence chart have?
Fewer than the number of steps you could list. The constraint is the teaching tool: deciding which steps are important enough to include is the skill. Four to six boxes suits most classroom tasks; more than that and students tend to record every small action without ranking them.
What is the difference between a sequence chart and a timeline?
A timeline is scaled to actual time, so the gaps between events carry meaning. A sequence chart only records order, with equal-sized boxes regardless of how long each step took. For a historical period use a timeline; for the steps of an experiment use a sequence chart.
Can I use it for writing instructions?
Yes, that is one of its best uses. Planning a set of instructions in boxes first and then writing them as sentences produces much clearer procedural writing, because the sequencing decisions and the sentence-level decisions are made separately.
What about cycles that have no beginning?
A straight sequence chart is a poor fit for a genuine cycle, since the arrow has to stop somewhere. For those, either pick an agreed starting point and note that it is arbitrary, or use a circular layout instead.