Product Review—Timeline of the American Revolution

I have used timeline figures printed by Home School in the Woods for many years. Back in Michigan, I put a butcher-paper timeline all around our living room, up at the ceiling. I wanted to show 6,000 years of world history, with 1 foot per 100 years, so it was 60 feet long. Yes, we had a large living room! As we read books for history, we would put up the stickers we got with pictures on them of the people and events we were studying. I threw that timeline away when we moved, though, because it was getting old and brittle and wasn’t worth transporting overseas. I made a new one out of cloth, and hung it around the top of the hallway in a house we lived in for four years. We added many more timeline figures to that one—but now it’s been packed away for four years because we moved to a very small house and haven’t had room for it since. I do like the idea of timelines, though, so when I got to choose an item to review from Home School in the Woods, I chose the Timeline of the American Revolution from their À La Carte Timelines collection. In our study of American history this year, we haven’t quite made it to the Revolution, so we put the timeline together and we will be referring to it as we work our way through those years.

I really like this timeline. It not only has the dates, it also has all the events they drew pictures of printed on the timeline in light gray, so it is very easy to glue the pieces on. I printed it on ordinary paper, trimmed one side of each sheet, and glued the pages together. Then, I accordion-folded it to make it compact. It’s about the length of our kitchen table when it’s spread out. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been having my three youngest boys coloring the four pages of very nice pictures when they have time, and this week, I had them cut out all the pictures. We glued them in place and talked about some of the events as we went. Mr. Sweetie finished the last few pictures this morning, and located some of the people I read about in the story I was reading at the moment, about a Quaker woman in Pennsylvania in the 1700s. I really like this timeline, and the ease of using it. I’m looking forward to trying out more timelines from them in the future.

Home School in the Woods has many other product lines, as well. They specialize in hands-on history projects in various formats, many of which look quite fascinating to me. They have just released a new product which sounds fun, Project Passport: Ancient Rome, which completes their Project Passport World History Study. I have a feeling my boys wouldn’t enjoy a project like this, but maybe someday Little Miss will and I’ll get the chance to try it out myself! The lapbooks look like a good way to organize what children are learning from history, as well. If you need something to make learning history more fun, definitely check out this company. They have some great products!