The Books of Years functions as an interactive timeline journal that your kids get to create. Kids can fill it with drawings and captions and can even paste in clipart or other pictures as they learn about the civilizations that make up the story of our world.
Using Your Book of Years
Start by cutting the pages on the dashed line with a pair of scissors. This will separate the timeline from the civilization portions of each page. You can cut just a few pages at a time as you work your way through the Book of Years.
Each two-page spread corresponds to a civilization or time period in the Layers of Learning curriculum.
On each two-page spread of the Book of Years, you will draw pictures and write captions and facts you have learned through books and videos and projects about the civilizations.
The first two-page spread is “Prehistory.” It is for anything that occurred before 5000 BC. If you are religious, you can draw in the creation, the Garden of Eden, and other prehistoric topics. If you are not, then you can add in dinosaurs, the formation of the earth, cavemen, and other prehistoric topics you study.
The rest of the pages have dates on a timeline at the top ranging from 5000 BC to 2030 AD.
Two pages from 5000 BC to 3000 BC are a thousand years each. After that, from 3000 BC to 1700 AD, each two-page spread covers a hundred years. From 1700 to 2030, each two-page spread is ten years of history.
Timeline dates for each Layers of Learning history topic are included with the Book of Years in a 13-page printable PDF. You will print, cut out, and paste in the timeline tags into the timeline area of your Book of Years.
Each civilization or time in history has a symbol so that as you flip through the timeline you can remember which civilization each event goes with. The corresponding symbols are also at the bottom left of each page with the civilization title.
Along with the significant events we have chosen, there are also extra blank timeline pieces so you can write in dates you find yourself through your studies that you want to include.
Leslie Stranathan –
This may very well be my favorite learning tool! The Book of Years has become a treasured resource in our homeschool. I love the timeline at the top, and the printable timeline tags that correspond with each unit. Not only does this help my kids record their learning as we study the unit, but it also is a good tool to use in review. They often flip through their books to help them remember concepts. Having the chronological reference of historical events is wonderful!
Randi Merrithew –
The pdf version did not come with the tags and it says it can be printed and put in a binder but this actually doesn’t work because the time line portion at the top only has one hole so it won’t stay properly in the binder. I ended up having to have it bound after I had tried hole punching it all.
Layers of Learning –
Sorry for the confusion. You were viewing the description for the Classic Book of Years, but you purchased the new Book of Years. The classic Book of Years had timeline tags that were included, but they did not perfectly align with the units, so in the new version, we added more timeline tag features and made them align with the units. We included them in the unit printable packs rather than the Book of Years downloads because it is easier to see their correlation with the events covered within each unit. The classic curriculum is no longer featured on the site and is not being supported or updated at this point. It will remain available until the entire new curriculum has been released (about another year), because there are still classic families using it. Google will still direct you to the classic web pages sometimes, but our site features only the new unless you specifically navigate to the classic area of the catalog.