Book of Centuries

[AFthfulJrney]

Do I need a separate book for each child, or since we are combined for our history lessons, will one book be enough? And, what do you all use? Do you make your own? Purchase one already made?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Bics]

I suggest the two eldest have their own.  This is something that takes years to complete and is added to for the entire academic life, if not beyond.  There is fancy, and there is plain.  I chose plain.  Each child (and myself) have a binder. I took alternating pages of hole-punched copy paper and lined notebook paper and stacked them.  This way, on each two-page spread (century) you have blank paper for illustrations or clipart and lines for listing. 

 

I started at the back. Each 2-page spread has the dates across the top for that century.  I ran mine back to 4000B.C.

 

When we read something or study anyone, it is put on a list through the week.  On Friday, we have a set time to update Books of Centuries. Sometimes my elder daughter has read about someone my younger has not.  It is a true record of what she has learned and cares about, so I do not force her to enter anyone or anything she doesn't want in there.  If she feels like spending time on it, she draws a picture and I help her write a caption small enough.  Otherwise, the entry is made on the lined paper--date and event. 

 

Simply Charlotte Mason has a free download of this nature, and there are lots of resources online of variations.  I do have the Homeschool in the Woods clipart this year because I think my children will appreciate the pictures.  I encourage you to begin--and keep one for yourself, or if you are anything like me you will be itching to put theirs together:)

[hollyhock]

I plan on having a combined book for most of my kids (who are doing history as a group) and my high schooler will have his own. I made my own with a binder and looseleaf, 100 years per two-page spread (I might cut that down to 50 once we get closer to modern times but we're starting with ancients). We're going with plain, too. We'll just write things in and I want to give my kids the option of drawing pictures of people and events. We had a wall timeline until now and they were always adding little illustrations to the things we put on it. This will have more room for that.