S/o timelines: were they helpful?

[displace]

I saw a neat timeline folder book at a conference and thought it was so cool. I did not make a lot of historical and world connections until I was an adult.

 

Then I thought, there's no way we would actually do this at home and I'm not sure it would make a difference anyway. What has your opinion been on timelines if you've used them in your home?

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

I am planning to do this with my son for the logic stage. I always hated memorizing dates in history even though I loved history. I feel this will help connect the random dates into a sort of story or visual that helps us put these dates in history in context of the world. I have visual learners though. Ymmv.

[sweetpea3829]

We implemented a timeline this year with our four kiddos...the youngest of whom is 5, and the oldest is 9.  We worked through SoTWs, Middle Ages.  The timeline we used was not really about memorizing dates, but rather...it was for putting events in perspective.  I found it VERY useful in helping the kids make connections between those events, and the impact such events had on other important historical events.

 

For example, the creation of the printing press tied in nicely with the dawn of the Renaissance.  My only regret is that we hadn't done this last year for Ancients.  

[Bluegoat]

We dis a timeline last year which was not great, but this year I decided to start one about half way through the year, and dd, who is 10,  seems to be really enjoying it and getting benefit from it.  She seems to have begun to really enjoy reading history more in general, which is part of the reason I think.  But she also likes seeing the relationship between different places and events.

 

What we do is much simpler than what many others seem to.  I just made a paper timeline that covers about what I thought we might this year.  I divided it horizontally into different regions.  So any event is placed by its date and they are also grouped regionally.  We don't use cut outs or anything like that, and there isn't really enough room.  But when we read, if there is anything that seems important, dd puts it on the timeline, just a dot, a date, and the name of a person or event.  It takes very little time.

 

 

[athomeontheprairie]

I asked a very similar question recently. Here is the link:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/546133-lets-talk-about-timelines/?fromsearch=1