Aug. 31, 2008 Timelines and History notebooks
How do you do timelines? That is a tough question. I know that it was one that i asked and asked. I have finally figured out that there are as many answers as there are people making timelines.
But the basic run down is this; there are two main versions: Wall and Notebook.
A wall timeline is large and in charge. It takes up wall space so that your children can see at a glance how time fits and how every thing fits in with every thing else. In general time lines are amazing tools. You can have a timeline stretch straight along the wall, and perhaps around the entire room. You can have one in layers down the entire wall, or you can have one chart that is pre-made that includes everything. There are many options and endless possibilities.
A notebook timeline does the same thing a wall time line does, but on a much smaller scale. there are various ways that you can achieve this tool. Just simple pages printed back and front. or you can do an acordian style layout where the pages fold into the notebook for safe keeping. But is readily available for pulling out and review.
I personally have a wall timeline chart up. It is huge though and takes up a good portion of our wall. It is pre-made and has the dates and time going around in a circle (it even has space to add in dates for the future. Shiver has been included as a "marker" to show where we are in history. We have not stopped there though. We also have created a timeline for our notebooks. They are simple pages with a line down the middle with points to adding in dates. There is also lines along the top and bottom for adding in personal opinions, notes and other odds and ends.
For labeling them there are many many options. you could just add in a name and date. you could add in name date and personal notes. you could draw a picture of the person or event. Or you can find clip art and print them. or you can purchase a pre-drawn supply. i am not an artist. I can fill in the blanks, and follow directions, but art is i am not. So what i have done is ordered " homeschool in the woods'" timeline packs. you can copy them to be about 70% of the original. They are perfect for a notebook timeline then. at full size they are perfect for a wall timeline. They not only have dates, names and picture, but they also have short blurbs about each person or event. This will help jog yours and your child's memory. I find that it is very easy to cut them out once a week, or all at once--which was my original plan--and put them in a small accordion style pocket holder. Kind of like a coupon book.
Here's a picture of one of ours (each dd has her own)
Then we have a double sided notebook/binder for their history books. On the left side is their timeline and on the right is their notebook. we also have a lapbook that we are doing. I don't have a picture just yet as we have not assembled them. . .For now we have them in just a simple 3 prong folder with a ziplock baggie that I have added to the inside cover with brads. then I have pages of card stock that we will be gluing the mini-books onto. Eventually the card stock will be moved over to our notebook, but while it is in the creation stage it's just easier to have them separate. if anyone is interested I'll see about adding in pictures.
Here is a few picture of their notebook, again each DD has their own.
 |
 |
 |
The left side:
Timeline side |
The notebook as a whole:
Notepad, accordian file, glue and pen
zippers shut! |
The right side:
Notebooking side |
The kids really like their notebooks. Everything is right there. And if we need to run out the door because DH needs to make it to an appointment or something, we can take it along with us. Everything is pretty much right there for them. Very handy.
So what are these notebooks? These are 2 Sided notebooks by "Case It" brand They acutally have 2 different 2 sided notebooks. One is the one above and the other is called "Flip It" I think. (please don't quote me on the name" but as it's name suggests, each side is on the opposite side of the binder and you have to flip it over to gain access. I liked the side by side as it wouldn't be so confusing. LOL, I get confused easily!!
Anyways, this is part of our history work for MFW CTG. Hope it helps someone!! Oh, I will upload the file for the timeline that i created. You have to watch the way it prints though as I goofed. I didn't realize that the pages would print down first not across. So I made the pages look like it was a 2 page layout going down the excell sheet! So to print, you need to highlight the left side of pages. then highlight the right side and print on the back of the pages. LOL, sorry!! It was too much work to figure it out to revamp it. Take care everyone and Have a great weekend!
T8ermomma
|
Comments (4)
Post A Comment!
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 27, 2008 MFW CTG week 3
With all the excitement of last week I am a bit off on our plan. we are supposed to be about mid week on week 4. however, we just finished up week 3. Not too bad, but we're skipping the celebration this week and we will reschedule the celebrations when they are normally celebrated through out the year. I've made notes on my calendar so that i know which week they were originally scheduled for quick reference.
We just learned about the Old Sumer civilization. we created clay tablets, cuniforms instead of the original 'sugar cookie" ones scheduled. You see, sugar cookies and i don't get along. LOL, and that is putting it mildly. i can not make sugar cookies to save my life. It's jsut a sad lumpy sticky mass of goo that turns out. Someone gave me the suggestion of using sugar instead of flour to roll them out on once and they did roll otu finally, but they were so sweet even the kids wouldn't eat them. So, we opted for clay!
They turned out wonderful. however, we found that as we were using air dry clay, they cracked really easily. This led to the explanation of WHY clay tablets are not still used today as recording devices. lol, they just don't last. dd 11's even started losing it's impressions as if it had weathered away a bit. Truly a great opportunity to show the effects that time can have on them!
Here are some pictures to show them off; (the color is from the colored craft sticks they used. they thought it was so neat that they could transfer the color as well!)
 |
 |
| DD 11's clay tablet |
DD 8's Clay tablet |
 |
| DD 4 Clay tablet |
|
Comments (2)
Post A Comment!
Permanent Link
|
Aug. 26, 2008 Dinosaur Dig
Well since we are studying ancient history we have taken a side trip to study dinosaurs. I mean you can't get much more ancient than that, can you? So not to get on a debate on how old the earth is, or how old the dinosaurs are, we have just taken to introducing the dinosaurs in the era that science has decided they best fit. It's very organized that way, and i don't have to sort them all out! LOL! For our guided tour we are using a book called "Dinosaur Atlas" by John Malam and John Woodward. it has a very cool layout as it breaks the dinosaurs down not only by "era" but also by location. So the North American Dinosaurs are in a separate section from the European ones. They are also color coded by era and a lot easier to timeline.
Now our timeline. we are creating a drawn timeline of the dinosaurs. so right now we have a 6 foot strip of art paper (like the rolls of easel paper you can get at joann's and other craft stores) that I have cut in half, Each of the older two girls have their own and they have drawn all of the triassic era dinosaurs. we will be starting another length for the jurassic era tomorrow. The girls are really enjoying it.
Another thing we are doing is an archeological dig. Each girl, and Mom and Dad, have their own dinosaur that they are digging up. we purchased a 4M brand dinosaur dig for each of the girls. (It was $9.99 at Hobby Lobby) what it includes is a brick of plaster that you have to dig the dinosaur bones out of. then you assemble them. It's a large project as the digging takes time, and patience. It comes with some tools, but we have found they are not that great so we have taken to using a screwdriver (common) and a regular paintbrush. It works much better than the plastic scapel they provide. Please be sure to watch your children if you do this too!
Here are a few pictures to show the beginning of this project. This is day one so it's barely started. BY day two the girls had 4-6 pieces out each. (DH and i only had 3, we are slackers!)
DD 11 Finds the skull to her T-Rex
(aka Sue)
DD 8 finds the pelvic bone to her Brachiosaurus!
(aka Long Neck!)
i'll post some more pictures as we go. I'll also post the pictures of the timelines as we get them more complete! Have fun with your study this year, because we are having a blast! The kids have declared that this is so much more fun than Public School! LOL, I'm secretly extremely pleased to hear that!!
|
Comments (0)
Post A Comment!
Permanent Link
|
|
|
|
|
