I Love Our History Timelines!

Ode to a Timeline

Oh I really love our timelines! I have been doing them for six years with my kids and this is something about our homeschool work that has really lasted and I still love doing with them. I may  be hugging a timeline right now. This idea of using a timeline comes from the Charlotte Mason philosophy of homeschooling, which she called a Book of Centuries.

What is so great about using a timeline for history?

The very most awesome thing about using a timeline is it frees you to study history out of order. Study history as your child's interest dictates! If they want to study the pyramids and then tanks from WWII--it doesn't matter! If you have a chance to check out a cool local history site even though you are studying the renaissance, go for it! It all just goes in the timeline and it is easy for children to see how it all relates to all the rest of history.
Another nice thing about timelines is you can go through them to review what you have studied. They don't have a chance to forget everything since it is all in a timeline that they use every week. It becomes a portfolio of their studies.

How I made our timelines:

I got my binders at Target. They are Up and Up brand 2" binders and they are PVC free, so no yucky chemicals for us. The covers and spine printouts I got from Guest Hollow. They are free printables and have a boy and girl version. They are pretty cute!

The timeline pages inside are from Build Your Library ($9.99). I got these because I liked the color on the pages and the way the years are set up (longer spans for the ancient times going down to 10-year increments for modern times. Each of the 4 main parts of history are a different color on the top of the page as well, so it makes it a bit easier to find out where you want to be in time. These correspond to many history series such as Curiosity Chronicles and Story of the World (the latter is not totally secular but I use it for some things).

This is how we do our timeline: 

Whatever history we learn about, whether in our history curriculum Curiosity Chronicles, on a field trip, in a YouTube video, in a historical book we read, or a documentary we watched on TV, we put it in the timeline. We do have some timeline stickers I ordered from History Odyssey and the printable timeline figures that come with the Curiosity Chronicles Activity Guide Bundle, but often we have to find our own, so we choose an image from Google Images and print it out, cut it out, and paste it into the book in the appropriate place (I buy lots and lots of glue sticks). Then I have the kids write the date and anything interesting we want to include.

Curiosity Chronicles comes with cute "baby was born" timeline figures, so we have put all the members of our family in, including grandparents and other relatives. This allows the kids to see, for example, that Grandma and her sister were born in the midst of WWII, and what else was going on in the world at that time.

When the kids are older I plan to do a family history project with the kids and we can add more ancestors to the timeline and see what was going on when they were alive. It makes history come alive when you know your ancestors lived through it.

The kids are able to make so many connections with this timeline! I plan to continue using the timelines through high school and they will be a great keepsake when my kids graduate from homeschool.

Get the most out of the public library

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I really make good use of the library as a resource for our homeschool. I looooooooooove the library! We get so much out of this resource for our homeschool and it saves us lots of money. However, I had to come up with something of a system to use it effectively and not get fines! I thought I'd share the ways I get the most out of our public libraries:

Avoiding fines
I figured out pretty quick that in order for my library use to help my budget instead of hurting it, I was going to have to get really organized about returning things on time. Plus my husband was getting really mad at me about all the fines. Ooops! Sorry, Babe.

First of all I started going to the library on the same day every week. I put in the homeschool schedule. Wednesday is library day. Sometimes we skip a week or go to a different city's library, but we always go on Wednesday. So the books are always due on a Wednesday! That really helps with my constant absent-mindedness. And if I need to renew books, I always do that on Wednesday, too. So this helps me remember to address my library business on that day every week.

The other thing I started doing was posting our library due dates in a conspicuous place in the homeschool area. I just write it on a little note-paper and clip it to a pushpin on the wall. It's right next to our calendar, which we do daily, so I see it every day, and I can check at a glance when things are due. This has helped me so much and I always get the books renewed and returned on time now.

Since I often have books from different library systems I put the city name on there. I am hoping you don't notice that July 26th is a Friday. I forgot to get a book I needed for homeschool so I stopped by and got it on a Friday. But normally the due dates are always Wednesday. Do you like my dry-erase accessories holder? I made it out of laminated paper with a cute sticker on it! I'm so proud.

Not losing library books
Our library books used to be all over the house, and we kept losing them under the couch or under the bed, or they'd be in the playroom being used to build things. I kept having to renew them instead of returning them because I couldn't find them! So I got this cute basket and placed it in the homeschool area. Our library books now have a home. The kids can flip through them easily and I can watch over them better. I still have to remind the kids to put them back, but we're working on it. We haven't lost a single book since using the basket.

Knowing my library policies
Another thing I did was go to my library's website and research the rules and policies. I made sure I knew how long different library items, such as books, DVDs, and CDs can be checked out for. I honestly had no clue before. I found out how many times I can renew items (6! That's a lot!). Also I found out that I can join any city library system in my county for free! I am now a member of 3 different library systems; in addition to my city's library, I got cards for two adjoining cities. This allows me a better opportunity to find the books I need. Be sure to check out the library regulations in your area, and see if there's a similar arrangement! It's really helpful to have so much selection. Sometimes you are allowed to join another library for a fee. If it's not too much, consider doing it if the library has a nice variety of books.

Got the books we need for our curriculum
The curriculum I use for literature and history is Build Your Library. It's appropriately named, since it's literature-based and requires a lot of books. Most people who use these kind of curricula, I think, just buy all the required books to save time and bother. But since our homeschool is budget-impaired I can't afford to buy all the books required. :( Occasionally I'll come across the relevant books at the thrift store (for $.40 or $.50) or at the Scholastic warehouse sales (for $1.50) and I'll grab them (score!) but I can't count on it. However, since I am now very organized about these things (not that I am organized about anything else) I get nearly all the books from the library and save the money for other things.

This is how I do it. When I got the new curriculum for this year, I looked up each book we would need, and searched for it in my city's online library catalog. If it wasn't there, I searched the other two library systems. I marked down which libraries had each book. Any books I couldn't find, I went ahead and bought on Amazon. This year I bought the two spines that I would need for the entire year, and I ended up having to buy only two other books that weren't at the libraries. This saved me about $240! Well worth the extra work.

I usually make up my homeschool lesson plans about a month ahead, so when I do that I just write down each book on the week we'll need it. Each Friday I do a little check of what's coming up in the homeschool, so at that time I go online and place holds on the books I need for the upcoming week or two. By Wednesday, there they are, set aside and waiting for me at the closest library branch. It's all quite easy and convenient, since I planned ahead. And it's great that I can renew, search, and place holds all online.

As another option for the books I can't get at my local libraries, I could use Interlibrary Loan (ILL) to get them through a distant library. You can get books sent from any library anywhere (it's amazing). However, at my library it takes 7-8 weeks or more to get the book, renewals are iffy, and it's just hard to plan that far ahead, so I haven't resorted to it so far. But now I know I have the option.

Summer Reading Program

The library has other features we make use of. One is the summer reading program. Most libraries have them. My kid really enjoys getting the prizes. Honestly we read every single day anyway so it's not much of an incentive for him, but it makes going to the library fun when he gets a prize. This year I was really stoked because the prize for finishing the summer reading was a free book of our choice! I love getting free books for the kids since I don't get to blow all my money at Barnes and Noble like I want to. This is the book we got: 

Cute and very educational. I love the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series.

Other fun stuff at our library
Most libraries offer classes, programs, and fun activities. A couple of the ones we make use of at our library is the LEGO club and the Culture Pass. The LEGO club is once a month. The kiddos love going to that. They just have tables with big piles of LEGOs and they get to build stuff. Then their creations are displayed in a glass case in the library until the next month. It's fun. I want my kiddos to love the library like I did when I was young, so anything that makes it an attractive place to go is a winner with me. The Culture Pass is something we use all the time for homeschool field trips. It's an awesome program for getting free admission to select local museums, the botanical garden, and the zoo. Yeah, sometimes you have to fight to get the coolest ones, but it's so, well, free!

So be sure to get the most out of your library for your homeschool! What do you use the library for?

Organizing Our Daily Work: One Workbin instead of a stack of Workboxes

I would like to take a minute to show you how I organize my kid's daily work. I've come up with a simple system that's working like a charm, and taking up very little space!

My kiddo has between 8 and 9 subjects to complete each day (I know that sounds like a lot, but each one only takes 10-15 minutes to complete). But I needed to get all those subjects organized and prepared, and I wanted the kiddo to be somewhat responsible for doing his own work. I know he's only 5; I still have to sit with him at the table and do practically everything with him, but I'm sure he'll get more independent as he grows and I want to encourage that. I looked around on the internet and many people are using some variation of Sue Patrick's workbox system. I love the idea of it, and how it organizes everything, but it takes up a lot of space for all those boxes! My homeschool storage space is a china cabinet in one (small) corner of our (small) combined living room/dining room. It's my only spot for homeschool stuff, so there was no way to fit a stack of workboxes in. I also have two more children who would need their own workboxes eventually, so whatever I came up with had to fit in a small space!

So this is what I came up with: "work folders" stacked into a "work bin." We have one bin for "to do" (on the left) and another for "done" (on the right). I got these cute bins at Staples ($9.99 ea) and they're just the right size. The folders in the "to do" bin are stacked one on top of the other in order from first subject to last. Each folder is labeled and has an image representing the subject, since he can't read all the subject names yet. I printed out some cute clip art for labels and taped it to the folder with packing tape, covering it so it can't fall off or get dirty. I put workbooks, worksheets, and flash cards--whatever we need for our lesson--in the folders. Books and binders don't fit in the folders, so if there's one to use with the lesson I just place it under the folder. The labeled folders then function as dividers. Any books, binders, craft supplies, etc that are under the folder but on top of the next are used with the top folder's lesson.  I also threw together some bookmarks so I can mark where in the book he needs to start. Then he puts it back in where he leaves off so it's ready to go for the next day.

We go through the folders in order, and the order is the same every day. I think that helps with building habits, and knowing what is coming next helps eliminate some griping.  He is required to go get the folder on top of the stack (and any accompanying books) and bring it to the table to work with me. When we're finished he goes and puts everything away in the done bin. This lets him see how much more he has to do, and gives him a sense of accomplishment as he puts each folder into the done bin. He knows he's done when the last folder is complete. The folders also help with some of the complaining because it is not so much me telling him what to do. Instead he sees it as "that's what's in the folder, so that's what I have to do." He actually loves most of his lessons, but handwriting elicits groans!

Eventually I will replace all the paper folders with these heavyweight poly folders. They're tough and should last a long time no matter what I stuff into the pockets.

Handwriting Without Tears workbook, and some lined paper to write his name.

We sometimes do an internet-based lesson, so in order to put those lessons in the folders, I printed out each online curriculum's logo, laminated it, and I attach it to the folder with a clip or just stick it in the pocket. When the kiddo sees the logo, he knows it's time to go to the laptop. I did the same thing with an ebook we use; I just printed and laminated an image of the cover.

I load the folders after school is done, or before bed. It doesn't take much time, because I've already filled out a weekly planner sheet with the chapters and activities we need to do. And most of the subjects are the same every day, so I don't even have to reload those folders. It's a simple system, but it is working very well. The kiddo knows what he needs to do, and he knows what's coming next. And if I want to I can put a fun activity as a surprise in one of the folders. So that's what we're doing; I hope you find it helpful!