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Like or Dislike using Book of Centuries???
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We are in our third year of homeschooling. With this being our second year of CM. I still feel so very new. I have 15dd, 11dd, 8ds, & 3dd. I am considering adding BOC to our schedule this year but was wanting thoughts from those who’ve been there done that. If you’ve used a book of centuries for your children have you found them to be useful and helpful for them or have you found they have been more busy work? And for which ages have you found them to work or not? Lastly what format have you liked best — a prebound one like her at SCM or putting it together yourself? Thanks!
JeniRae
I’m biased because I created the one SCM sells. Just being upfront about that.
A BOC is essential in my opinion. Right now, we keep one as a family, but I have learned much by keeping it. In another year, my oldest will begin her own and we’ll keep going with the family one. The BOC helps to fit people, events in with what’s happening worldwide. It is the antithesis of busy work. It is much more efficient at helping to tie everything together than a mountain of worksheets.
We tried a wall timeline for a few years, but it fizzled because we didn’t refer to it enough and I hated having the thing wrapped around the room. However, others like having it on the wall.
There are a variety of pre-printed books available. The only two that are similar to what CM did are mine and the one by Laurie Bestvater. Hers is a lovely hardbound, but personally I like the ease of using the spiral bound better.
HTH,
Christie
Thanks for your reply. Do you think starting my 10th grader on it this year would still be valuable? She would not complete it prior to graduation?
If you’d like more info about how CM used a BOC, you might like to check out these articles Laurie Bestvater wrote for Childlight USA:
http://childlightusa.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/the-book-of-centuries-revisited-by-laurie-bestvater/
Part II:
We were able to hear Laurie give a presentation on the BOC at the retreat I attended this weekend, and I hadn’t realized that these books weren’t just for history work. Perhaps you all already knew this, but it was different from what I’d learned doing a timeline through other curriculums. A child could add to them on a museum visit, sketching artifacts, or could record the lives of authors or other figures they met in their reading.
I think a 10th grader could certainly start one, and it would be something she could add to throughout college and her life – many CM educating adults keep one of their own.
Blessings,
Aimee
Yes, I do. It has helped me as an adult to have a better grasp on where things are in history. Your tenth grader can continue adding to it later in life whether at college or just from personal reading and learning. This is what I intend to do.
What ages were your oldest children when you started your family BOC?And what age when each starts an individual one?
Aimee, I have heard Laurie B. speak on BOC and it was a terrific talk.We add all sorts of things to ours – historical figures and events, authors, poets, other interesting events/figures, drawings and more. It is a wonderful tool.
Thanks for the links Aimee. I had read the first but not the second. Here’s another question I have. If a child is studying say the 12 century in history but reads a biography on Helen Keller or a modern invention in science would he then enter it at that time? Or might that interefere with the careful planning of the entries for each century if not all enteries are entered within a relatively close time frame. (That question made since in my head but not so much on paper. lol)
I made sense:)
Go ahead and enter people and events as they are encountered, even outside of “assigned” work. That is one way to make the book personal and meaningful, but more importantly it helps you to see the fuller scope of history and who was a contemporary of whom and such.
I have kept a timeline with my kids for a long time. I actually don’t know that it’s important to me this year. I know they have a lot of value and my oldest son’s looks fantastic, but I just don’t think I can fit in another thing to do this year. If we do it, it’ll be because my ds12 likes keeping it up and I won’t have to have a part in it. =) Hey, just being honest.
JeniRae, If you want to try using one without investing the money in it for now, SCM has a template for a basic BOC. That is what I am using with my kids who are 8 and 10. All you need is paper, printer, and a binder. Or with your younger ones, you could start a century-based timeline: open a file folder, draw 1 inch columns across the pages, and label each one as a century. If you are going to work in Bible History, then start with 4000-3000 BC instead of every hundred years, or have a separate Timeline for the BC years and one for AD years. That would get them accustomed to recording events this way. I think a BOC is a great investment of not very much time and makes a nice memory of your children’s school years.
Kris B
We have not really started ours yet, but can see the value. As I plan and read books ahead of my kids, well I have realized a few things. the war of the French and English in Canada which includes the battle at the plains of Abraham. (French Indian war it is called in the US (who knew) happened only a very few years before the war of independence in the US… I also think the French revolution in France was about the same time… But I never realized that. With a book of centuries or timeline, it is much clearer.
Jennifer in WI – I understand about the difficulty of fitting it all in. By 12, I will have my kids keep their own books, but I will require it. It is a wonderful tool that i wish I had when growing up. It is a simple thing, that need not be complicated or burdensome, but should become a delight for them to keep on their own.
So, along the lines of this discussion. I was planning on doing a family BOC b/c I have a 6yo & 3yo (not that the little one is really doing that much with History). I just printed the template but haven’t done anything with it. We actually are going kinda slow getting school started b/c I was feeling overwhelmed so reduced to basics. I am putting little one in a mom’s morning out type thing for a few hrs on M,W,F (am just having to accept I’m not at a point to be the mom that can keep it all pulled together & remain calm while training a 3yo & teaching a 6yo) so am thinking I’ll start the Module 1 Hx/Bible/Geo back up once she starts. Anyway, I digress a bit…my question is how would you do the BOC with the 6yo? Have her draw a pic on the page, me write something on there?? I’m not quite sure what to put in it but really like the idea of a visual representation of how hx fits together. Any links to pics of family BOCs that might help me?
We’ve done a sort of ‘century chart’ on the wall this year (although if you prefer it in a book there’s no reason you couldn’t do the same basic thing that way..I had to make the columns kind of small to fit in our wall space, and some of them are already too full, so I’m thinking about changing to a book format next year so I can use a full page or even a 2 page spread for each century instead.) This is with my dd6. I have the Homeschool in the Woods Timeline figures CD (this is kind of pricy, you could do the same thing by using google or clipart to find pictures of various historical people if you are pressed for money…I’ve used Google for a few people we wanted to add that I couldn’t find on the CD), so at the beginning of the year I printed out all of the timeline characters we would be coming across in our Bible and history readings and printed them onto sticker paper. Each figure is around 2 inches square or so. This was kind of time consuming, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with it any other way. Anyhow, as we read about the different people, my dd colors the figure and sticks it into the correct century on the chart. She’s enjoyed it, it’s been simple and effective. We’ll keep doing things this way until I feel like my kids are old enough to keep a century book more like the one that Christie put together. =)
You can see some pictures here on my blog if you’d like.
http://snowfallacademy.blogspot.fr/search/label/History
HTH some,
Jen
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