Time for a Change

With all of the changes going on at our house, I figured it was time to clean up and change my school for the year as well. I lean heavily on reference materials (because, "You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.  ~Clay P. Bedford") so having my reference books on storage has been like tying up my right arm and asking me to draw a picture; extremely difficult! We have been working on math through a combination of printed work sheet free math games, English through copywork and reading, science by working our way through an in depth, year long study of birds (as well as Austin's SciQuest labs) and music through band and theory class (aka piano lessons with Mom). History, however, has eluded me. HOW do I reference teach without using MY reference materials? We begin this year as always with dynamic introductions: Civil War Reenactment, America; the story of us, pictures from DC of the WWII planes... something to spark an interest and it is working... to an extent. I've just felt like the structured curriculum leaves the stories sounding so flat and the hands on leave too much room to forget. I think I may have finally married my two ideas in the, not original idea, of the Timeline Notebook.


Having seen them in the hands of friends that have spent LOADS of money on a CD program to do it, I was sure that I could come up with a way to make them for free. Today I finally did! Here's how to do it:

1. Go to GuestHollow and print off your timeline pages - there are around 110 so have the paper and black ink ready! That gives you a timeline in USABLE chunks of 100 in BC and 30 in AD to make the base of your book.


2. Go to Currclick and down load the FREE timeline project and add-ons of music, transportation, states and Presidents.


3. If that isn't enough for you you can go to The Homeschool Shop and scroll down to where it says NEW - Clip Art for Timeline Books and download it. Now these have to EACH to opened and converted to something your computer's printer can read, but it is a HUMONGOUS file.


Viola! You now have the same stuff that retails for $30 for each section or study! I can't wait to get started tomorrow. Since the boys have been watching about the Revolution I think we will start there... :o)