Homeschool Timeline----
Great for Teaching History

A Homeschool timeline help put history into perspective. A timeline can help your child see how the history of one country influences the history or another country. It also helps your child see history chronologically.

Timelines to Buy

You can buy ready made timelines. Sometimes a timeline is included in your curriculum or you can buy a separate book. When you buy a timeline you will want to see if it presents your world view. Streams of Civilizations Timeline 750 BC to 2000 AD. Presents a Christian view to be used with their textbooks produced by Christian Liberty Press, but could be used with other curriculum. Greenleaf press also produces graphic timelines for different eras.

There are blank timeline books that you can buy. The books usually have pre-marked chronological increments. One such book is Wonders of Old: A Blank Timeline Book of World History.

Make Your Own

If you do not want to buy a timeline you can have your children make their own. There are several ways to make a homeschool timeline. Choose the method that best fits your family.

When you are making a timeline decide on some reference points. For reference points use historical eras. Your world view will determine what is important and what you call each era.

File Cards

If you are short on space file cards would be a good choice. You could use file dividers to mark the historical eras. Organize the cards in chronological order.

3x5 cards also come in different colors you could use the colors to indicate a different region of the world.

File cards can be hung from the walls. Use push pins to place a string on a wall. Attach 3x5 cards to the string with paper clips.

Notebook

To make a homeschool timeline notebook you will need a three ring binder. You will also need some timeline forms. You can make a timeline template in an office program.

To make a timeline on your template, draw a line on your paper. You can make hash marks by using the exclamation point. If you want to compare dates leave a space and make another line.

Next find some clip art to represent events such as a cross for religion, a flag for exploration, a microscope for science, and a crown for rulers. There are other important events that you might also want to record such as people, inventions, and governments. You might have to change the size of the clip art so that it will fit on the page.

To make your timeline even more interesting, add some historical portraits to your page. You can find historical portraits at the University of Texas website If you use portraits from the website you will need to resize them in Word or a photo editing program.

There are also books and CDs that have blank timeline templates and portraits. I have used The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide by Maggie Hogan and Cindy Wigglers. I like it because besides the timeline it also has outline maps that my children can add to their notebook. The guide is also for kindergarten through high school.

History through the Ages CD-ROM Set Creation to Present by homeschool in the woods has black and white portraits for each era of history that your child can print and color.

You will also want your children to organize their notebook. Dividers can be used to mark eras. That way when you are studying a new period of time your child would just have to add a new divider. You can also use color to represent where the event took place.

Using a Homeschool Timeline with Special Needs Children

Do not overwhelm your child. Help your child with parts of the timeline that he had trouble with. Another idea is to write most of the information on the timeline. Your child can add details such as a drawing or a picture of the correct historical person.

Timelines are good for children who are visual learners. When a child looks at a timeline he can see how events fit together.

Hands-on learners also like doing timelines. For different dates your child can draw or find pictures of important items. They can also add pictures of historical people. Some children also might like to add borders to the timeline pages to represent different eras.

If you child is not interested in history at all you can make a timeline something that your child is interested in.

A homeschool timeline can help your child see the big picture of history.