How important are dates when talking about history with kids?

[4KookieKids]

So this year my kids and I started doing a big timeline together, and I feel like we're hitting a lot of snags. Religious issues aside (because I don't even want to touch on issues of religious history in this thread, please!), I feel like every time we look up more information about something like phoenician glass blowing or the minoan civilization or the invention of silk, the majority of sources I find give different dates than the ones in SOTW. I can accept that there's controversy and uncertainty over some of the dates - that's ok with me and my kids as well. But I'm not sure if it'd be better to list the dates in SOTW, since that's their history spine, or if I should go with the *majority* consensus in other books/resources. I've also been a little concerned about stories (like the one with the discovery/invention of silk) that it seem to be presented as fact in SOTW (i.e., not prefaced as a legend from that time) that most other sources list as a legend. I guess I haven't really thought much about these aspects of history and how to best teach them to my kids (and I certainly didn't anticipate this issue or I might have spent more time researching history curricula/spines...), so I'd just like to hear from others.  Any thoughts? Am I opening a can of worms here?

[Arcadia]

My kids understand history dates as guesstimates and that as more evidence comes up via archeological digs, carbon dating the dates may shift. 

For example, my family have assumed silk was discovered in China but if archeological evidence turns up evidence of older existence of silk elsewhere, then assumed facts change. 

[HS Mom in NC]

I think you should expect less certainty on these things.  You can simply preface a reading with, "Most historians consider this a legend."  You need to ask yourself if an exact date is really important in that context or if a general time frame is adequate for the discussion. The development of Minoan glass blowing? Not hugely important what year that was, a general time frame will do.  

[EKS]

If the date listed for a particular event changes depending on the resource you're looking at, that is a clue that it is very approximate and/or there is dispute among experts as to when the thing occurred.  

Frankly, for SOTW 1, all kids need to know is that everything happened "a long time ago" with some understanding of the general order in which things occurred.  For SOTW 2 it's similar--all they need to know is that everything happened after the fall of the Roman Empire but before 1450 (or whenever SOTW 3 starts) and the general order.  I haven't actually used SOTW 3 (in its entirety) or SOTW 4 because I felt they sacrificed coherence for the sake of chronology.  I'm not against chronology--it is *the* fundamental organizing principle of history, especially for young students--but once you get into modern history other things come into play that make more sense to use as the primary organizing structure.

None of this learning-the-general-order of stuff should be done in a drilling-of-dates sort of way, but in the way that they'll naturally get by going through the books. 

Personally, I think that timelines are more trouble than they're worth, and I *really* think that having children memorize dates for anything but the most important events is ridiculous.  I know you didn't ask about this, but I know a lot of homeschoolers who seem to think that the major point of history is to memorize dates.  Which is sad because it reduces history to the trivial.

[Bluegoat]

I'm not convinced there is a lot of value with kids having exact dates for this stuff unless they enjoy that sort of fact.  I would tend to place things more in terms of centuries.

I teach history to elementary kids more as a story.  Items that might be legends or just stories I simply note as such.  In many ways they tell as much as the history, if they are the stories people told about themselves.

I think the goal is to get a feel for history, more than a lot of discrete facts committed to memory.  Facts are important too, you'll build on them, but they can be supported within a story approach.

[Bluegoat]

Also - I think with timelines the goal is often to give kids a sense of the amounts of time and order of things.  Many people though use them with kids who are pretty young, and I think before about 8 many don't really get them.  It's still too much of a leap.  I almost prefer the book of centuries asa tool.

[4KookieKids]

You're all right, of course. I was probably over-thinking things. I think I let myself get stressed out because everytime I'd go look up more information for them, there'd be conflicting accounts and I have at least one kid who wants to know the TRUTH, and that felt like a lot of pressure. lol. We're only doing the timeline because they wanted something visual to look at as we listen to the audiobooks. Two of my kids have very poor memories, so they have very little hope of ever memorizing dates on a timeline, but they like drawing little pictures to glue onto a timeline and then talk about the stories later... lol. 

[Lori D.]

Just my opinion, here... I think key dates can be very helpful as "mental timeline". It comes down to what the individual considers to be a "key date" -- for me, that would be things like knowing roughly when major civilizations began/ended, when key people lived, and dates of key events (like, the year of the fall or Rome or the first man on the moon, or the years for WW2). Again, just my opinion, but I find that knowing dates for people/events to be more important for modern history (because those events are still directly impacting current events and me personally), and the further back you go, just a few major people/event dates are needed to keep history "lined up". So in your example, for me, specific dates of invention of silk or Phoenician glass-blowing would not be important, but rather an overall sense of progression and connection (which cultures preceded which or were contemporaneous with which) would be more important.

And YMMV, as the other component here is what best works for the individual in remembering and making connections. For abstract/sequential thinkers, dates are most helpful; for visual/concrete thinkers, a "general progression" may be more helpful.

ETA: PS -- I tend to do dates like Blue Goat -- centuries, and then when you get to Modern History (1900 to present), by decades. And for US History, connecting key events with key Presidents.

[KrissiK]

I don’t emphasize dates at all, but rather giving them a sense of “this happened before that” in time. Alexander the Great was before Julius Caesar type of thing.

[Irene Lynn]

I love building a framework of history of general time periods and making sure that framework is understood.  For the earliest times those time periods are much longer and more vague, because we often don't know as many details.  The closer we come to the present the narrower those time periods become.  I don't expect my kids to retain precise information about the types of topics with which you are struggling. I don't even expect them to memorize many specific dates, but I do want them to know what/who came first and around what time, so they can listen with some critical thinking. Even museums often put a range of years, sometimes a few hundred years, on an object.  There is uncertainty for a lot of things.

One of the things I love about homeschooling is this very realization.  When I was in school, we just read the history book and learned what it said.  I was not introduced to the idea that historians were not agreed on times or that different methods/assumptions/etc. lead to different conclusions. This is a great lesson for kids!  Looking at the conflict and trying to determine what led to the differring dates is a great exercise.

[nixpix5]

We have loved the Veritas Press History Timeline songs because they give us key dates for events that allow them to place things along a general mental timeline. If they know Rome was founded in 476BC then that gives them some guidance when they think about events around that particular event. I have found they are scary good at determining about when something would have taken place based on these dates they can now fashion in a linear sequence. My 7 year old was correcting his uncle recently about some ancient event and he said "no, there is no way that happened then because the Trojan War is thought to have occurred around 1250 BC so..." and he came up with a legitimate rationale for his belief. So I wouldn't get caught up in specific dates for everything, but having some allows kids to get a sense of the massive passage of time between major events in ancient history and allows them to make sense out of modern history that is more tightly compact. 

[ScoutTN]

We don't do timelines in younger years. In upper elementary and middle school, we have done a simple, homemade one, with generally agreed-upon dates for important  events/people on it.  Selecting what goes on is a little random, but that is fine. Ancients will of course be the most nebulous and Late Modern the most specific. My dd put the domestication of horses on our Ancients timeline, a very approximate date for sure, but one that interested her. No how would things as vague as glass blowing have made it onto our timeline unless one of my kids was very interested in that. I have my kids memorize 5 dates each era, to be reference points for understanding where other things fit in. For example, last year for MARR, they learned: 400 Fall of Rome, 1066 Norman Invasion/Battle of Hastings/William the Conqueror, 1215 Magna Charta, 1517 Luther's 95 theses, 1603 Elizabeth I died.

Don't sweat the small stuff! Keep it simple. Let the kids participate and have fun with it. My ds had great fun drawing minutemen vs. redcoats to illustrate the American Revolution a few week ago.  Review or refer to it often and have it in an easily visible place, if possible.

[Lori D.]

44 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

We don't do timelines in younger years. In upper elementary and middle school, we have done a simple, homemade one, with generally agreed-upon dates for important  events/people on it.  Selecting what goes on is a little random, but that is fine. Ancients will of course be the most nebulous and Latem Modern the most specific. My dd put the domestication of horses on our Ancients timeline, a very approximate date for sure, but one that interested her. No how would things as vague as glass blowing have made it onto our timeline unless one of my kids was very interested in that. I have my kids memorize 5 dates each era, to be reference points for understanding where other things fit in. For example, last year for MARR, they learned: 400 Fall of Rome, 1066 Norman Invasion/Battle of Hastings/William the Conqueror, 1215 Magna Charta, 1517 Luther's 95 theses, 1603 Elizabeth I died.

Don't sweat the small stuff! Keep it simple. Let the kids participate and have fun with it. My ds had great fun drawing minutemen vs. redcoats to illustrate the American Revolution a few week ago.  Review or refer to it often and have it in an easily visible place, if possible.

Adding what interests YOU to a timeline is great. and I love the idea memorizing 5 key dates in each round of history! That is very do-able.

[4KookieKids]

Thanks all! My kids just like timelines, so I really appreciate everyone’s input.

About two years ago, they did a timeline for us that consisted of our school year. It had birthdays on it, holidays, any special trips we were taking,  and anything else we were looking forward to from the beginning, and then as we went through the year we talked about and watched how we were progressing through the timeline, and also added any big events that happened, but weren’t necessarily planned from the beginning. They had a great time, and it just went from one wall in the dining room across all the way to another wall. They loved it and talked about it every single day for a year straight! ? I feel like they got the timeline fever... lol