A Few of my Favorite Things: Episode 6: Timelines



This student plays the game Chronology to brush up on her history skills.

 

I’ve been suggesting educational tools that would make nice presents and I have to say, with the exception of the game above, most of the suggestions in this post will go over about as well as a present of socks and underwear.  (In fact, I gave a memory work CD to my five year old nephew who promptly asked his mom why I wanted him to have it.) So let’s just take a timeout from the present idea.  I can’t ignore this educational tool, especially with the focus of aiding memory.  You may not want to put this under the tree, but it’s still a great memory tool.  Most children enjoy it.

I love Timelines!  We are part of a homeschooling community called Classical Conversations that teaches history through a timeline.  The timeline starts at Creation and ends with September 11, 2001 and has 140 different world events.  They use a song (it is 13 minutes long) and timeline cards to teach the events.  I love this method because it tunes children’s ears to pay attention when they come across something from the timeline.  The first time I noticed this was when my daughter was 4.  During the holidays she heard the Christmas story from Luke 2.  She looked at me and said, “MOM!  Caesar Augustus and the Pax Romana!” 



Our dog Remus was named after one of the founders of Rome.



We love the timeline so much that it even inspired our family to name our dogs after the founders of Rome: Romulus and Remus. 





 

The CC timeline CD, called the Audio CDs, comes with lots of memory work including the Timeline, the Presidents, Science facts, History songs, etc.  The CD set costs $35, but watch for sales because they are making a new edition of the materials.  I bought the Cycle 1 CDs for $10 at the end of the school year last year.



 

 All three cycles have the timeline CD.  The Timeline Cards, called Acts and Facts History cards, are beautiful but a little pricey.  I am very glad I bought them because the pictures are of famous works of art that depict the time or event, and the back has about 5 paragraphs of information about each event.  The students at the beginning just look at the pictures to help them remember the card, and as they grow older they can use them for reports and personal study. I tutor the youngest learners in my Classical Conversations community, and they LOVE to play with the timeline cards.  I like to mix them up and have my students put them back in order.  My students try to stump me by hiding one or more cards, and then I have to guess the missing cards.  I also like to use Hedbandz with the timeline cards.  (You can read more about how I use Hedbandz here).

Veritas Press also has timeline cards, and they have recently added a song.  I am not very familiar with these timeline cards, but many people are happy with them. 

For a Biblical timeline, check out the Bible QuestCurriculum.  It comes with a poster of the timeline, and a Big Bible Song that covers all the points of the timeline.  We use Bible Quest as a supplement at our church.  It is $50 for each Old Testament and New Testament, and the entire Big Bible Song is in both the Old Testament and New Testament programs.

Here is a free printable timeline that corresponds with the Mystery of History curriculum.  I have used this at our church as well.  It has many Biblical events, as well as a few historical events.  In my Sunday school class, we whisper the historical events as a reminder that those particular events were not recorded in the Bible.

I have one gift idea that goes along with the timeline theme.  Children (and adults) will enjoy Chronology.  The suggested age is 14 and up, but I play it with my 6 and 8 year old.  I was introduced to this  fun game in college.  Chronology has many historical events, and some other dates- like when the mayonnaise was invented, etc.  Someone will read you a historical event from a card. You decide where that event falls in your timeline. If you are right, keep the card and your timeline grows. The first player to build a timeline of 10 cards wins!

Oh the possibilities! I have high hopes of making a personalized game by creating chronology cards with dates and facts that we study in school.  I've been an educator for 14 years and it hasn't happened yet. 
 

Timelines are an amazing memory tool.  They help us to organize information and file it in our minds in an orderly way.  I have a better grasp of history and humanity because of timelines.