“His Story” Timeline
A Christ-centered timeline of history has been something I have wanted to do for so long! It took me a long time to get a foundation/process for the timeline and I as I gathered my thoughts and what I wanted the timeline to reflect in our home, I tried to make sure that it could be duplicatable for others. I decided to do a visual on the wall as well as a record in a timeline book. While I have pieced together the artwork for the visual timeline and made a simple digital file for others to use (see below), the timeline key link dates are not my work. They come from the American Heritage School (AHS) which is a school founded in principles based off The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you are looking for a worldview Christian timeline - there will be a few dates you may choose not to use, but I think most of the key links will align with other’s Christian beliefs. And, I would invite you to learn and research events you’re unfamiliar with to learn more about them and their place in history.
AHS has publicly provided their timeline key link dates to everyone. I’ve found them in multiple places, but American Heritage Foundations Guide is the most updated version. This guide gives a very detailed look into the school’s objectives, examples of classroom timelines, and I’ve read through it multiple times as inspiration to what I want my own home-centered environment to look like. I also review their grade-level descriptions for their in-person classes that have course objectives and questions as a guide for my own yearly objectives. They will sometimes give examples of material they’ll pull from and I will often find a way to work it into our curriculum. In their own words, this is how they describe the benefits of using a timeline:
“The use of a timeline and its role in teaching any subject, especially history, are vital. All subjects have a history and a God-given purpose and should be initially introduced to students by imparting that knowledge. In history, there is a natural order, that of chronological sequence. If you mentally examine your own history memory bank, you will find that your understanding of chronology was added piecemeal, as your knowledge of history increased and you began to form associations with prominent events and historic characters. Memorizing a list of dates and events serves no purpose in historic literacy, for it does not provide the discernment needed to distinguish between the important and the inconsequential. It is of far more value to know the order of the relative significance providentially and to be able to reason from cause to effect. This is where the role of time mapping, or the use of a timeline, is so valuable.
We are not born with an innate or developed sense of chronology. Time is a developing concept in the young, elementary-aged child, one that must be learned. Young children initially require concrete or visual impressions for learning, such as pictures, maps, globes, and objects that can be handled. The abstract capability of reading with symbols must be learned and developed. To introduce the concepts of sequence and time, the timeline serves as a concrete method. Children first learn the idea of sequence as a preliminary step for the understanding of chronology and dates later.
There are many ways to divide time. All of history can be divided into millennia, centuries, or epochs. Critical events and characters can be mapped that way. But there would be many events that would be inconsequential in the study of the providential hand of God in history. Nineteen major events, characters, or links on the Chain of Christianity have been selected to illustrate the westward movement of the Chain of Liberty, from Creation to the present. The incarnation of Jesus Christ (his birth, death, and resurrection) is the focal point of all history and should be highlighted in some way on each timeline. These links become“pockets” into which children deposit their growing knowledge of history. For example, when the children study Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in America, they are taught that its founding lies within the same time frame as the American Founding, a major link in America’s Christian history. Therefore, children quickly learn the significance of events in God’s timetable and then grow in their sense of time and chronology in relation to Christ, His Story.” (American Heritage Foundations Guide, page 47)
For some perspective, I worked as a nanny for a long time. Two of the families I worked for had their children in private Christian schools where they could teach the gospel and history together. One of the families attended American Heritage and that was my first exposure to the school. During the time, I went to the campus a handful of times to help with their kids and also corrected a few of their junior high student’s papers. The experiences I had with Christian education, really influenced my views on what is possible with a faith-based education. After I had kids and my twins were about two we started researching ways we could have them attend AHS. After meeting with administration, we ultimately decided that the financial sacrifice and distance factor would cause more stress on our family than we wanted. We decided I was going to do everything I could do supplement our children’s learning at our local public school with faith-based material…helping bridge the spiritual gaps at home. And, then I never did….until we decided to homeschool. And, our choosing to homeschool was widely influenced by the potential I saw with faith-based learning.
The very first program I looked into was American Heritage On-line, also known as Family School. However, with young first graders, I felt the curriculum was too advanced and I’d have to simplify so much that it was really overwhelming to even know where to begin. I turned to other curriculum options, but have always appreciated the missions and curriculum structure of AHS. AHS online is developing new programs and I am always keeping my eye on what is unfolding for their offering. At some point, I suspect we’ll join their membership program, but I am waiting for my kid’s to be a bit older. I didn’t want to wait on the timeline though…
Anyway, I share all this to first make sure I give credit where credit is due and two because resources like this can often provide a framework for you to bounce off of for your home-centered learning environment. All I have done is gathered artwork and plugged it in with the dates so we can have a visual timeline for our wall that will coordinate with a timeline book (also known as a Book of Centuries). Some of the pieces of art are the same as the school’s examples - and some of them were artwork choices that spoke to me. Because of any potential copyright issues with the artwork and dates, I am providing the files I put together for free, but I do appreciate a tag or recognization on social media if you share them.
MATERIALS & NOTES
His Story Timeline Wall/Book Art with Keylink Dates (and paper chain file): His Story Timeline Files - these files are stored on a google drive. The wall timeline was created with images/dates on half-size 8 1/2x11. This was because I wanted to keep the images smaller to not take up so much wall space. I don’t have full sheet sizes available. Using my printer settings I made the images smaller so I could print them out and have them coordinate with our timeline book (see below). This will allow us to have the key links and most pivotal moments in history on the wall as something we always use and remember. And, then we can have a much more detailed visual of history unfolding in our timeline books. I also printed off smaller versions, laminated and made into flashcards we could utilize to practice putting the dates in order. For the areas we are diving deeper into topics, we have been using the notebooking method to draw and report on things the kid’s have learned. (A variation of the notebooking method is also used at American Heritage.) Also, something xxto note, I added “The Gathering of Israel” because I wanted additional terminology of this to stress what is going on right now. I wanted something that reflected the pioneers coming to Utah (Building Zion) and a separate picture of a temple and Quorum of the Twelve (I thought it would be confusing to little kids to place both pictures at the same place on a timeline book). So, in our timeline book, I placed the Building Zion in 1847 and the Rome temple with the Twelve in 2019 since this event was termed as a “hinge point in history” and this last year as proved to be so. Finally, I left “My Place in God’s Plan” blank so you can add in a digital file of your family or tape/glue one in.
Timeline Book: We choose to use this one by The School Nest. I reviewed a lot of timeline books. I searched Amazon, Pinterest, YouTube, asked homeschool groups, looked in homeschool curriculum company timelines, looked through Etsy, and even considered just making my own. I guess I am picky, but, to date, I feel like this was the best one. My only real complaint is it is created with the secular terms of BCE (before common era) and CE (common era) vs BC (before Christ) and AD (after death). Considering the whole point of a “His” story timeline - is to show the major pivotal moments in Christian history, I felt a little weird using a secular termed book. But, I decided the other pros were worth it. It is aesthetically pleasing (we could potentially be using this book for years and my hope is it to be a keepsake so this was important to me), there is a lot of timeline space, and it is affordable. I am just using it as a learning opportunity for the kids and they’ll become familiar with both sets of terms.
Pens: These are the same pens we use for our notebooking. While we use the thicker pens for our notebooks (05 or 03) I’d recommend using 01 for the timeline book.
Timeline Book Visuals: What I’ve done for the units we’re studying is find a piece of artwork or something representative of what we’re learning, save it to my computer, resize it in a document page and print. It takes less than a few minutes and then my kids and I place it in the timeline book and label it. I suspect over time there will be things we just jot in with a pen. You could also use stickers or invite your kids to draw pictures. We have also added family life events like pictures of the kid’s as babies, when my husband and I were married, ect. and our ancestors. Family Search is an incredible tool to help keep handy while studying history. We printed off my kid’s fan chart with 6 generations so we can learn more about our ancestors and plug them into the time we’re learning about. I glued it into the “My History” of our timeline book.
UPDATE: For the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History images up to 1836 I have a simple file you can download here.
Reference Books/Resources: Of course, as we study the scriptures we’ll continue to add in more historical events. Further, you can utilize whatever, but currently we’re using the Beautiful Feet guide as we study early US history this year. Many of the books recommended with this curriculum are Christian based and we’ve liked almost all of them. We’re supplementing with Little School of Smith’s American Girl units this year and they have added a really fun component to our studies with simple engaging hands on activities. I also have Timelines of Everything, Star Spangled Story timeline, and the American Girl Story of America on hand for reference. Well-Educated Heart also has a wide variety of resources and many people use the My America Storybook. We tried the storybook over the summer and my kid’s showed little interest so I will try again in a year or so. If I were to guess, it’s probably most age appropriate for 5th grade and above. The audio version of My America Storybook may be an excellent resource though for those who utilize other school options. It could be a simple family audio to listen to together. Last of all, for the rest of our church history and study of the Doctrine and Covenants I am using a timeline found in the Red Headed Hostess subscription ( you could use scripture stickers for timeline if you wanted). I am hoping there will be a similar timeline for the Old Testament available this January. And, for the Creation, I bought the PDF files from Brighter Day Press.
You can really do so much with timelines and make it your own, but I hope this jump starts some ideas for you. My hope is now that we have a foundation, that it’ll be easy to continue to plug in what we’re learning. If there has been one thing I’ve learned about history, is that we’re always building upon previous knowledge. And, when we look for the Lord’s hand in the past, we can always find it.
