If you like your kids to have a more hands on learning experience, rather than all textbooks, workbooks, textbooks, workbooks… Home School in the Woods is a good place for you to start your search. We have used their project passport history to study Ancient Egypt, the unit study on U.S. Elections, and one of the activity paks. This time around, we have had the chance to look at the Timeline Collection: A Collection of Historical Timeline Figures. We received the download version, but they also have it on CD if you would prefer that.
Timeline Figures
There are well over 1200 figures in this collection. They are offered with and without text to give you full control over how they are used.
Of course, there are pros and cons to both kinds of figures. You can use the no text version as part of a research paper or project board, or if you want your child to write out all the information on his own.
Here are the figures for Abraham Lincoln; with text and without text.
Within the document, to find the image you want, you can look at the chronological or alphabetical list. You could also look within the category you think that figure will be in, as well, “explorers” or “artists” being two examples of the list of categories they have compiled.
Once you’ve found the pictures you want to use, you just print it out. Then your child can use it however he or she (or you) see fit.
They can color it and glue it onto a piece of paper. They can use that as part of a paper they write or maybe just to go along with some copy work. Doing it this way, they can see the timeline unfold in front of them.
They can also cut them all the same size, hole punch the top left corner, and then put them on a ring. Then they will serve as a more portable way to study the figures. You could put them on the ring in chronological order to help remember what happened and when in relation to other events in history. It’s a portable timeline! If you can’t tell, this is my favorite way to use these and the way my daughter is using them.
That being said, the ways the timeline figures can be used is only limited to your creativity… which most of the time, I’m lacking in, but that’s what Pinterest is for, right!? Or… You could check out this blog post on the Home School in the Woods website where they give you ideas on how to incorporate timelines into your homeschool.
In addition to all of the figures, there is also a “Timeline Helps” section of the collection, which gives you ideas for using the figures with wall and notebook timelines (lots more awesome ideas besides the ones I listed above), a variety of resource and game ideas, and insider tips for coloring and gluing the figures.
I think this is a great set. I would definitely recommend you click the banner below to read what other TOS crew members have to say about it though. Also, other review members reviewed different products from Home School in the Woods, so you might want to check that out too.
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