Our Timeline

Part of an early Classical Education is memorization.  Lots of memorization.  I love it.  And believe it or not, the kids do too.  They beam with pride when they are able to recall the Classifications of Living Things or the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Much of the facts are put to song.  And let's face it ... when you have a song memorized, it just sticks with you.  Pretty much forever.  One of our most favorite things to memorize is The Timeline.  It's a song of 161 world events beginning with Creation and ending with present day.  The song is over 13 minutes long.  And yes absolutely, the kids are indeed memorizing it, and enjoying every bit of it.  The song has a lot of hand motions (many of them are derivatives of ASL), and Sunshine has latched onto them as much as the older 2!

In order for the kids to have a visual for The Timeline (so they could see how the different events relate to each other), I created our Homeschool Room Timeline.  It was simple and cheap enough to put together, although a little time-consuming.  It's made from that poster/presentation foam board stuff (the one that has 2 flaps that fold in).  I used three of the flaps (purely a guess based on how much space I had on the wall), lined them up, and taped them together on the back.  And I then created The Timeline based on the events we're memorizing.  I attached it to the wall above the kids' desks in our Homeschool Room.  There's enough room that I can add more if/when the time comes.  There were a few spots where I wish I had given myself more room, especially around the 1800's!  It's not perfect or professional, but it works for our purposes :-)  If you don't have a designated Homeschool Room, a Timeline like this could easily be made to fold up and pull out when being used.

To help with the other facts we are learning each week, I'm using this magnetic/dry erase board from Ikea.  I asked DH to hang it on the wall so that I could pull it down to change it each week - I really like how it works for us.  I don't know if the kids are referring to it all that much, but I am finding it very helpful.  I'm also eventually planning on hanging some of that wire stuff from Ikea to hang out Timeline cards and Science cards (with clothespins) as more visuals.

(Come find me on Facebook!  And if you have been blessed by my blog, would you mind taking just a few seconds of your time and click on the 2 links below?  You don't need to do anything except click each button once (you can click once a day!).  Each click is a "vote" that allows my blog to be seen by other homeschool and adoptive families so I can help them too!  Thank you so much for blessing me with your help, may God bless your day!)