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 How Do I Make a Timeline? by Cindy Wiggers For many home school parents who have attended conventions, or read magazine articles or how-to books on home schooling, putting those new ideas to use can too often get forgotten, put off to a later date, or even lost in the Land of Someday. “Wow”, you say, “That’s a great idea!” but when you get to the nitty gritty of planning your school schedule you wonder how to make that “great idea” come to life in your own home. I have found this situation especially true in regard to using timelines.  Have you wanted to use a timeline, but never gotten around to it? Perhaps you’ve never even seen a timeline and now you want to include one in your school. After all, there are many benefits to using a timeline. Among them are creativity, increased memory retention, enhancing kinesthetic learning, improving history comprehension and the list goes on… If you’ve always wanted to start a timeline, there’s no better “time” than now. Let me set your mind at ease and give you some basic guidelines.First, let’s look at a couple of kinds of timelines. One is an informational timeline, full of dates and events. It can be in the form of a chart, book, or strips that can be mounted across the wall. You may find a timeline running across the pages of your history textbook or in a separate section of the history curriculum Any of these timelines are great to use as a resource to locate dates and events. A couple of good informational timeline books are: Timetables of History – dates from 5000BC to 1990 covering seven topics (history/politics, literature/theatre, religion/philosophy/learning, visual arts, music, science/technology/growth, daily life) Adams' Chart of History – fan folded oversized book stretches out for 16 feet. Starts at 4000BC to 1990. Charts the history of the nation of Israel with parallel (horizontal) lines following Egypt, Greece, Babylon, Chinese, Rome and European histories and more. I must admit I haven’t yet met the student that waits with bated breath for the opportunity to break open their timeline book. I wouldn’t recommend them for pleasure reading, but DO use them as a valuable resource. By the way, there are others just as good. I’ve just mentioned two for reasons of space. It’s fascinating during any study to open up the timeline book and see what kind of inventions were created at this time, or what was the popular music of the day, or what was happening in Europe during the signing of our Declaration of Independence. The second type of timeline is hands-on and student-generated. You start off blank with only dates and fill it in as the year moves on. Your student continues throughout his school years adding and adding and builds a memorable book of his studies and of events of interest to him. Now, there are some who are intimidated by the blankness of it all. To you I say, “Chill. Be brave. You CAN handle this!” If it helps to add a few dates of interest for reference points, by all means do so. You may even want to record the starting point and ending point of standard eras of history. That’s completely up to you. Whatever it takes to calm your soul. There are several way to establish this hands-on version. I’ll cover two for now. One is in a poster format or strips that are mounted on the wall. In this way you and your student can “see” history unfold. The events are fairly easy to see at once. Strips can stretch across the wall, down the hall, up the stairs, and take up as much (or little) space as you deem necessary. I once used bulletin board decorator strips and taped them end to end to the stairwell wall. Every 10 inches or so represented 50 years. We mounted little figures we had cut into shapes that represented people, events, battles, etc. and wrote on the figures the person or event in focus. When I got tired of the strips and figures curling as busy hands wiped across them daily up and down the stairs, I changed to using the poster style. Takes up much less space and we could still “see” the turning points or events from our personal studies all at once. The laminated poster Timeline of History is available for only $10 or you can make your own with poster board. Just be sure you leave about 2 inches between horizontal lines to provide ample space for figures, drawings and events that overlap. Let 2 horizontal lines drawn across the top represent 4000 years of BC and the remaining horizontal lines equal 200 years and it will all just about fit. We attached figures, drew pictures, or printed neatly, whatever the child preferred at the time. We learned to color code events to make dates more memorable. Green for science and inventions, blue for world history, red for American history, purple for Biblical events, and black for all others. Most students love using all the colors of the rainbow. My daughter made a fine set of timeline figures for a high school history project and color-coded her figures according to geographical location. At a glance we can see what events occurred in America, Europe, Asia and etc. Another fine method for a timeline is with using pages in a three-ring notebook. Let every page represent 10 years, 50 years, 100 years or even 200 years (you may want BC dates to span 200-500 years per two-page spread). You can draw a horizontal line across the middle or upper third of the page. Place a perpendicular notch or tick mark at the beginning of the line, in the middle, and at the end. For a 20-year page the space between tick marks would represent 10 years. Place the date at the beginning middle and end and voila! You’ve got your first timeline page. You can buy a book with this done already (Book of the Centuries) or you can copy a reproducible timeline page from several good books on the market. (Garden Patch of Reproducibles, The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide, Facts Plus Activity Book and many others). All you really need to do is start dating the pages. The first and last date on the page is enough. When the student places information on the timeline page he can fill in more dates at that time. Don’t be too rigid in placing your dates on the pages. It’s perfectly alright to have pages represent different number of years. In fact we all probably use many more pages of timeline for American history than world history, but that’s just because we focus more on the details of our own history than in South America, for instance. Every year keep adding pages and information. Use the bottom half of the page to allow student to write sentences, essays, facts or details of interest to their study. The part above the line is for dates and events. Some write info above and below the line, it’s totally up to you. There is no fast and firm way to make a timeline. Every timeline reflects the individuality of the student or family creating it. What’s important is to just get started. The New Year marks a good time to make a change. If you haven’t integrated a timeline in your schedule yet, this is as good a time as any. It is interesting to record current events from the daily news on a timeline. At the end of the year you have a mini almanac of the year’s events. Color code for type of current event (world events, politics, innovations people, local events) or geographical location of the events. By the time you start your school year next year you’ll be feeling pretty confident with using the timeline and you can start to focus on adding those interesting historical events as well. How about science? Inventions and discoveries can be placed on the timeline also. Using purchased or home made timeline figures or pictures cut out of magazines or old encyclopedias add variety and interest. Attach them with post-it glue stick or tape. Whether you use a poster, strips across the wall, or a three ring binder let it be a fun and creative outlet for your students to record what they’re learning. I’ve given you some basic guidelines, but remember there’s no set method or rigid rules. Go ahead, just get started! You’ll find it rewarding for both teacher and student. Related Products:  Adams' Chart of History Bible Timeline Figures CD-ROM Historical Timeline Figures CD-ROM Mark-It Timeline of History (Laminated) The Ultimate Geography and Timeline Guide (with free World Outline Map) Did you Know?
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