In every subject from computers to science there is some amount of history involved. The who discovered what and when aspect can be a bit confusing to understand for homeschool students. Rather than simply having them mug up the dates and deeds by rote, make it more interesting for your homeschool students and create timelines based on what they are studying. Here are four different ways that you can create highly visual timelines.
Wall Chart Timelines
Using a normal poster board and strips of printed paper you can create a chronological sequence of events. These are great to offer a lot of information in a single glance. Add images to make it more attractive and memorable. Their drawback is that you need a fair amount of wall space to display them. Which means even a couple of timelines can cover up an entire wall.
Note Book Timelines
Mark up a fixed time period per page on the note book and create a flip through kind of tim line in the note book. Charlotte Mason called this the ‘Book of Centuries’. Besides writing in the event you can use diagrams, stickers, and other images to pretty it up. You can have a whole lot more information in such a timeline, and another bonus is that it’s easy to fold up and store away till needed again.
Index Card Timelines
Add different events on individual index cards. Make sure you mark the year prominently in the same place on all the index cards. This will allow you to easily place them in chronological order. You can string up a clothesline and pin up the index cards in order using clothespins to show the sequence of events. Once you are done with using the timeline the index cards can be stored in a cardboard box.
One Page Timelines
These are mini timelines that show all the information related to the events on one single page. These are the sort of timelines that are printed along with magazine articles showing the sequence of events. It will not have very much data but shows the what followed what quite easily to the homeschool student. They are easy to do and simple to store.
