I am looking for ideas to get started with history timelines. I really have no idea what I want to do. How do you guys recommend getting started? What do you guys use for timelines? Do you start with small ones to throw away before doing a major one for everything? Any other relevant information appreciated.
I don't make my own. I have a book called Timelines of Everything. DD (dear daughter) browses through it.
Our first year long one was a plain art sketch pads, about the size of a scrapbook in 4th grade. And we labeled the pages for the years, and as we went through story of the world that year, my DD (dear daughter) cut the picture note cards from the back of her SOTW student pages and glued in and colored.
For middle school we switched to blank timeline books from Miller Pads and Papers. Dds read their history, their art, their science and write key dates into their places. I've had middle DD (dear daughter) color code hers. One color for birth and death dates. One color for science discoveries. One color for political events, etc. But we also create smaller timelines for individual units or subjects in the short term. For example, each year before the National Latin Exams we make a timeline from the beginning of Rome through tge Republic to the Fall of the Empire and have them fill in dates to review and add new info as they go deeper each year into specific aspects. Then we are reading The Story of Western Science as our read aloud slowly this year. We've created a large timeline on the wall of the works and authors as we go to review as we start each new chapter.
We do classical Conversations and they have timeline cards and a song with actions.
We also have the Adams Chronological Chart Map of History.
We used the longest hallway in the house and made one the years we did global history. It definitely puts perspective on how much of what we study now is so very recent and how little we know about ancient times, as well as how long certain empires really lasted relative to their importance in our current culture.
Now they use generic time lines in book format. I don't think it's quite so informative, but for me to fit in modern times I'd need a much bigger house, lol.
Thats why I do a blank timeline book. It still shows how there ate hundreds to thousands of years between known events in the ancients vs. tons grouped together in modern times if you use the same time format on each page like decades or centuries.
With my 7yo I sometimes put out historical picture books, movies, and paper dolls and he puts them in order on the floor and identifies the major era. For a regular written timeline I draw one on a regular piece of paper and he estimates around where the major eras would fall and where BCE/CE breaks. He can give me a few examples of major events and very roughly estimate around where they would fall.
I may do the big History Sticker Timeline book soon. I think I probably want him to complete one cycle of world history (at a very basic level) before getting into a full, detailed timeline project.
He'll turn 7 this summer. We've covered sequencing, but never used a timeline before. I am starting to wonder if its too early to start a major one.
I love this idea from someone in our FB group. She hole punched and taped together 19 manilla folders. It is both a book and a pull out timeline that goes clear across the room.
I like that! Then on each folder kiddo could make a collage with printouts or drawings. You can often find free coloring pages of famous events and figures.
I'm taking it kinda easy on serious history studies. Mostly because when I think about my own education, I don't really remember anything important from history class until about 5th grade or so.
I know we did lots of history studies.... I know the teachers and curriculum cuz my mom also taught there. But none of it really stuck until I was older.