Friday, March 12, 2010

Timelines

Timelines are invaluable learning tools. I wish I had made timelines to accompany my study of history when I was a child! The kids have enjoyed making their own this year. We don't have a long enough wall space to keep one up, so I taped cardstock together, accordian style, and they tuck their individual timelines in the front pocket of their history binders. This has really worked out well. I initially thought that having one up on the wall would have a bigger impact, but now I think that they would just get accustomed to seeing it all the time. So, once a week we take them out to update with new figures and review from the beginning to our present spot. I have learned SO much this year along with the kids! We have a solid understanding of the sequence
of events studied thus far.


Learning the sequence of history events is the key. Dr. Ruth Beechick's book, A Biblical Home Education, has some very practical ideas in this regard. She writes:

"Homeschoolers have been oversold on the idea that knowing dates equals knowing history. Think for a moment about what exactly a date does for you. Sometimes it helps you feel that you could answer a test question. More importantly, it sometimes helps you figure out the sequence of some events.....If the purpose of date learning is to get to the sequence of history events, then we are going at it backwards. We can learn the sequence to start with. That is more meaningful and more interesting to do....Attach a few dates if you like. A few anchor dates are all that children need to memorize. If they know that Solomon's date was about 1000BC, then they know that all the kings (except Saul and David) came after that date, and they know that Moses and the judges and everybody before the kings were before that date. See what one anchor date does? Numerous dates are unnecessary."


I thought that was very helpful. Especially since I didn't get around to gluing in the dates on the timelines!

New Dresses

Thanks for sewing our new dresses, GramB!
Love,
Grace & Kayla

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