Keeping a Timeline: Timeline Resources : Half a Hundred Acre Wood

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Keeping a visual timeline has been one of our favorite history learning activities. It has provided a way for us to understand circumstances leading up to and surrounding historical events. It has provided a context for us to connect the various things going on across the world at the same time through history. And it’s provided a tool for us to assist our children in narration. It’s been such a wonderful addition to our homeschool that we not only have a Book of Centuries, but we also have an assortment of accordion-style notebooking timeline pages, AND a timeline wall (though it is still in a shambles from when we were in the midst of construction last year).

In fact, we have multiple accordion timeline notebooks from our Homeschool in the Woods Studies…

…and at one time had a timeline bordering the wall in our garage… (Click here to download the timeline wall template pictured below.)

…and then we upgraded to a wood-trim timeline wall.

You can even use a ticket rack to hang timeline cards on!

But… if you don’t have space for a timeline on the wall, that’s okay! Instead you can paste figures or sketch people and events into a timeline notebook…

In fact, all you need is a spiral notebook and a little creativity!

In a similar way, you can use index cards to create timeline cards or a miniature timeline notebook.

Something that has given us the convenience of a timeline notebook but with the ability to stretch out the pages to see the passing of time is an accordion timeline notebook. (<—Download the template and instructions!)

Our most favorite timeline notebook (with timeline figures) has been this one offered by Homeschool in the Woods. It’s beautiful!

This is the way our family keeps a timeline today! Many years have passed since we originally wrote this post, and the History through the Ages Timeline Figures from Homeschool in the Woods are still the best anywhere. The only drawback we’ve encountered in using them is navigating through the sheer quantity of figures. With over 1,300 figures, it hasn’t been easy to find the figures we’ve needed as we’ve read through The Story of the World, but now there’s a Timeline Figure Match-Up available! Click here to read more about it and to download a copy!

We eventually made a timeline notebook with all the features we wanted, and you can find that here.

We recently created a concise set of timeline figures for our American history studies. If you’re studying U.S. history, we’ve compiled a set of American history timeline figures that provide an overview of American history from the early Native Americans through the present day, featuring 72 people and events from U.S. History along with the 45 U.S. Presidents, for a total of 117 timeline figures. Check out our American History Timeline Figures here. (To purchase our American history timeline figures + timeline notebook bundle, click here.)

How to Start a Timeline

Decide how you want to display your timeline and set it up. Do you want to see the entire timeline at a glance? Do you have wall space for a wall timeline? Do you mind spending the extra time putting together an accordion timeline notebook? Would you prefer your children create their own timeline notebooks with a plain spiral notebook? These are all questions to ask to determine which method is best for your family.

Start where you are. Backtrack later. Instead of worrying about backtracking through everything you’ve already done, just pick up from where you are. Later, when time allows, you may find that your children enjoy it so much that they ask to include the people & events they have read about or studied in the past.

Keep it simple. Our family first started making a timeline with history sentence memory work instead of focusing on a 160+ point timeline. As we memorized, studied, or read about historical events/persons, we posted a picture representing it. (Instead of posting people and events from the timeline, we posted something from each history sentence, which was so much easier and more doable for us at the time.)

Let it morph. Keeping a timeline helped to give us a better idea of when events occurred in relation to each other, and it was something we all looked forward to doing! When we started, we used The Timeline Project (with clipart for timeline). If you’re looking to purchase something pre-made, be sure to check out History through the Ages.

After the first year of our timeline obsession, we started a Book of Centuries because we inevitably had to take down part of our wall timeline to build on to our home. To find out how to use a Book of Centuries and to download a free template, visit Simply Charlotte Mason.

Finally, we put together an accordion-fold timeline notebook because we love unfolding it and looking at the timeline as a timeline, and the lines make it neat-and-easy to write or paste illustrations into it.

If you don’t want to make an accordion timeline, you can use our free timeline printable as a Book of Centuries and not worry about the extra effort involved! We also have a version without lines if you prefer it without the guide lines. Visit our Timeline Notebook post for the downloads!

For those who use the Classical Conversations Timeline, below is what it looks like when it is all posted on an evenly-spaced timeline. Visit Our Timeline Wall: What We Learned for more information and tips we have as a result of our timeline wall project! {For those wondering, I used to have a document with miniature-sized scanned images of the front side of our timeline cards. I no longer have this document. It’s an infringement of copyright to digitally store and share the images that are on the timeline cards.}

Also check out this site, which describes wall timelines and portable timelines.

Our favorite timeline figures are made by Amy Pak at Homeschool in the Woods. (Download a sample of History through the Ages Timeline Figures on the sample tab on the product page.) These include a fact with each person or event.

How to Memorize a Timeline

In the past, our family used the Timeline song from Classical Conversations along with a sketch of Timeline Thumbnails to help cement those memory pegs in place. The same principle can work for Veritas or any other timeline you’re memorizing. Click on the image for more about our Timeline Thumbnails (a method that can be used to help memorize any timeline).

A List of Timeline Resources

Here’s our ongoing list of timeline resources. If you have any questions, or if you have a resource you recommend, please feel free to leave a comment below! If you have a timeline post you’d like to share, please feel free to link it up at the bottom of this post.

Because of the enormous amount of time it takes for me to research in compiling these link lists, I ask that you do not copy and paste the links in other documents, websites, or emails, but instead send people to this webpage. Thank you for honoring this request!

Timeline Resources