Tuesday, August 13, 2013

A Wall Timeline


For months I tried to think of a creative way to have a wall timeline in our homeschool room that wouldn't be too paper-taped-to-the-wall-looking and that the kids could build themselves. This was the solution for us. I love it because (a) the kids made it, (b) it's adjustable - I can move dates and events around making more space for the time period we are studying, (c) it looks great in the school room.

We started with four 24" x 36" budget canvases from Michael's (when they were 50% off - which is often) and craft paint. Green was their pick. I thought an stylized earth with blues and greens would be fun, but my idea went nowhere... and it probably was a bit much. When it was dry, I attached the back of the 4 canvases with brackets, making a giant canvas. Bigger canvases would work, but they cost much more. I cut the pre-painted white molding board (from Lowes - very inexpensive and already white) and the kids spaced and nailed the boards to the frame of the canvas.


Then we printed timeline figures on heavy white card stock. I LOVE these timeline figures from Homeschool In The Woods. We only printed the people and events we had studied this past year, we will be adding to this for years. And I'm sure we will have some of our own black and white drawings to add in months to come, but the cd of figures we have is pretty exhaustive. I also printed dates to cut out and stick to clothespins (adjustable). After coloring and cutting, we just stuck them on with a little masking tape (easy to move). 


I thought about moving the dog crate, but that's where it lives (sigh)... and Henry was sleeping. 
He's totally into that timeline. 


We're looking forward to adding many more dates and figures this year! 
I'm very excited about what we will be studying this year... posting that soon. 
  




5 comments:

  1. Looks great! I like the globe idea- would have been pretty cool if you ask me :) Wish I had a nice big wall space like that for our timeline- I loved using ours when we had it up, but didn't like it taking up my whole kitchen wall (plus it wouldn't work with the board and batten we did in there anyway).

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  2. What a GREAT idea!! I, too, have never had much success with the strictly paper variety-- looks like you've found the perfect solution! And now Henry has some lovely bedtime reading material, just in case he needs a little help at night :)

    Hope you have a wonderful summer's end!

    Blessings,
    heather

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  3. It looks wonderful! For the last three years we have had a wall timeline that was paper stapled to the wall with the same Homeschool in the Woods images. We are currently painting the room so the timeline has come down and now I have a chance to update it which is what I'm trying to do today with not as much success yet. I'm hoping to use maps to liven it up, but my initial idea is not working well, so now I'm trying to rework it. Hope you don't mind if I post your photo on Pinterest;I've searched for new inspiration and yours provides that for us. :)

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  4. I love timelines! Ours is the paper-taped-to-the-wall variety which I've comes to terms with. Now, I love it because it starts in one corner "In the beginning God...", that wall ends at the birth of Christ. Next wall is through 1700s. Third wall is 1800s and 1900s. Fourth wall is short and runs 'til the Lord comes ??AD. We add to it all the time too, sometimes printing pics, sometimes drawing, and some cut from magazine--all about the same size as yours. I "laminate" them with packing tape before hanging them, also with packing tape. They generally stay put that way. It's in our living room. I love how we can refer to it any time we want to and it's very clear what comes before or after an event because it's all in a straight line. My biggest regret is that I took the first one down! We tried My Father's World and that's how we got started with a timeline. I left it up two years. Then I thought I should probably take it down. Then we started a second year of MFW (we had taken a gap year with a baby) and it picked up the timeline where we left off. Shoot! So we just started again and it's a permanent part of our living room.

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