The reason why I made my time line this way was because I had seen a lot of great ideas for timelines - but they were either painting whole walls or hanging things clear around the room. Well, we love homeschooling - but we don't want our home to necessarily look like a school all the time and since I school in our dining room - I had to come up with some other idea. Hmmm, how to make a wall that is retractable? A window shade! Wa-la!
So here's the directions on how I made my time line that most people don't even know is there until I show them!
Click to see:
1. The time line fully extended.
2. The time line rolled up.
| 3. I used sharpie Markers to draw all the lines. Pick 2 colors to represent each hundred years. Every time you switch a hundred years you will switch back and forth on colors. I drew the lines 3" apart. There will be 18 rows. I used purple for my very bottom line, labeled it 2000 on the left side and 2999 on the right. The next row, I used green to draw the line and then mark 1900 on the left side and 1999 on the right. The next row up, I used purple to draw the line and then 1800 on the left, 1899 on the right. Next row up is green with a 1700 on the left and 1799 on the right. 5th row up is purple and 1600 on the left and 1699 on the right. |  |
| 4. Now, the pattern changes a little because history isn't as "full", so I switch to having 200 years on each line for a while. So, you will need to find center on your shade. (pencil will erase later) and draw a purple line from the left side to a margin from center so you have room to write the date before you get to center. That line will have 1400 on the left and 1499 on the right of it, which should end right at center. Then write 1500 in green, draw the line the rest of the distance and write 1599. I continued this pattern up to the 1 AD. The year 1 will be on the farthest left of the shade. All your lines should be one color on the right, and the other color on the left. I marked AD to the left of the 1 and in Black and then marked BC on the right of the next line to be drawn above. |  |
| 5. The final lines I drew were 400 years each. So find where your quarters are on your shade and continue up. So my next line up was purple green purple green "399 ________300 299 _________200 199 __________100 99_________1 AD". You might want to draw these from right to left so you don't get confused on the numbers, since they count backwards now, or write them out ahead of time. I ended with 2000 on the top right and didn't write a line the rest of the way. I'm planning on writing in Bible history in the gap from 2000 BC to creation which is maybe 6000-2000 years worth of time. |  |
| 6. I got all gung-ho about using stickers and labels to label things, but now, they are starting to come off a little, so I warn you, don't use stickers. I just have a set of regular and thin sharpies to write on it as we go. I try to color code things a little and draw little symbols, but do whatever you feel you can. |  |
| I hope this was helpful to you. We use our time line a lot. Whenever we study something, we put it on there. Even if we just watch a true story movie, we'll mark that too sometimes! What is nice about this shade thing too, is there is a lot of other ideas you could come up with. I have another shade that I can just swap out of the brackets and use for our spelling wall. Things that you want to be permanent instead of just erased from the whiteboard later. The ideas are endless! |  |
 |