Time Lines

I love history.  It is my favorite subject because it encompasses nearly all others.  One of the most effective ways of cementing historical people and events in the mind of a learner is through the use of a time line.

For example, we are studying the decade of the 1880's.  (Because history rarely defines itself in neat, ten year increments, I added five years to the front and back of that decade.  It gives us a little more wiggle room.)  Our family knows the Little House on the Prairie stories.  If they know that Laura was a child when the Kodak camera was invented, when Garfield was assassinated, and when Krakatoga blew creating a tsunami that killed over 36,000 people, then those seemingly random events gain meaning.  When we study Edison and Bell with a time line, we can see that they were contemporaries, but they were twenty years away from the Wright brother's feats.  And knowing that Mark Twain was writing about Jim it was only a dozen or so years after the Civil War, clarifies the racial prejudice outlined in Tom Sawyer.

If your house is like mine, you already have maps and letters and bookshelves filling up your walls.  Where do you put a time line?  Especially one that includes world and US history, literature, science and inventions, math and anything else that you could want to place.  Here is one idea for you.

I took a roll of simple ticker tape

and drew lines the thickness of my ruler.

The children folded the ticker tape on the lines, accordion style, and wrote the year on the line.

Folded, it only takes up a small space.

Once it's unfolded, you can see history happening.  This is a newly made timeline, so we only have a couple of events, but we plan to fill it over the next few weeks.

Using different colors for different topics (Blue = US history, Green = Inventions, Orange = World History, Math = Purple, etc.).  As we study a topic, we put it on our timeline.  Today we studied decimals and the base ten Metric System (LeGrange lived during this time).  By relating decimals to the invention of Coca-Cola to Nellie Oleson, memory connections are sure to be stronger than if we had just learned how to figure decimals.

Try using this small time line tool to make history come alive in your home school.

By the way, this is a great resource for creating your curriculum based on a time line.

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Writing Your Own Curriculum

Now that I'm back to writing and compiling my own curriculum for the pods, I thought I would let you in on the process.  How does one create a curriculum?  Here's how I do it.

Make a plan. Sit down by yourself and write what you would most like your children to know. Then, consult with your husband about things that are really important to him. After you have come up with those things that, as parents, you feel are most vital, sit down with each child individually. Ask them what they would like to learn. Kindly explain the things that YOU, his parents, feel are the most important. Make exchanges, "We will learn more about dinosaurs and airplanes because that is important to you. Would you be willing to learn some things that Dad and I feel are really important (like penmanship or spelling or math)?" Usually, when they are given the option to be involved in the planning, they are more willing to give and take.

Then, I take these interviews and we make a list. At some times and with some kids it is easy to compile a list of goals. At other times, we have to struggle together to decide on a direction. We make quarterly goals and try to cover many areas. A list may look like this:

• Learn to write my name and the names of everyone in the family
• Master the letter sounds
• Learn more about dinosaurs
• Go on a field trip to find fossils (or go to a museum to see some)
• Memorize five scriptures
• Clean my room every morning before breakfast
• Learn the names of all the continents, major oceans and hemispheres
• Count by two's to twenty

or something. I just made that up, but could be about right for a kindergartener. If we get stuck, I might say, "We have reading, writing, scriptures, helping around the house . . . what about learning some things in the kitchen?" To which you and the child can come up with a plan to learn some things in the kitchen.

• Learn to make toast, crack eggs and do simple kitchen measurements (one cup, one teaspoon)

"You know, we don't have anything on here for exercise. What kind of exercise goal would you like to make to keep your body healthy?"

• Ride my bike every day for at least one hour

And so on until you both feel like you have a well-rounded, interesting outline for the next three or four months. You can then create that curriculum based upon the list you compiled together. You won't need to force because he had a hand in choosing what would be studied. If he decides after one month that he's had enough of dinosaurs, change it up. Do not force yourselves to be bound by this list. It is only a guide.

How do you do this with more than one kid? Well, you make a list like this for each child. You do the things that are important to him, but you will find the lists meld quite easily. It is fun to change up the lessons to make them harder for the older child and easier for the younger. If you are learning about reading a thermometer, you might just teach the younger child how to read the mercury. He will lose interest and run off and you can teach the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit, where those names were derived, do labs and measure cold water, hot water, boiling water, cooking candy, the freezer, etc. You can do the math and figure out how to figure the C if you only have the degree in F. See how this becomes fun family time? Also, you don't really understand something until you are able to teach it. That goes for the kids, too. If your older child can teach something to the younger, he really understands it--and it cements itself in his memory better than if he had just done a worksheet on the topic.

Finally, be an interesting teacher by teaching things that are interesting to you.  Make sure that you get your own study time in. It is HARD to find that time for yourself, but it is most vital. I have friends who do this and friends who don't and you can tell, really tell, in the education of their children. I think it is mostly due to example and to the fact that you are loving your own learning. It makes you excited to teach them what you are learning. And an excited, passionate teacher is contagious to their students.

You can do it!  After having done it for six years and then letting someone else do it for two months, I will never go back.  A personalized approach is, I think, the most effective way to learn.

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