I created and use a Book of Centuries in our home and my cottage school class "Leap into the Love of Learning." Today, we created our Book of Centuries for the school year. A Book of Centuries takes the study of history beyond the memorize and forget approach often seen in schools. This approach is hands on! Children create a timeline of what they want to remember about each person and event studied. A Book of Centuries helps organize history studied into an easy to use and understand format, and puts that information into an easy to retrieve format.
When we have larger groups we even add other steps:
"Stepping into Character." This is where the student comes as a character of history to teach others about them. "News Reporter."When the person being reported on is evil, the children can be a reporter, telling about the evil person.
I recently changed the pages of the Book of Centuries to be a one page spread instead of a two page spread. I printed the Time/ Place grids on to card stock. Each card stock page becomes an index page and content referenced on the index page is expanded and placed behind that page.
We created our own tabs:
* Green for Creation– Ancient Times–1 AD
* Deep Burgundy Red for the Birth of Christianity, the Apostasy, and Medieval Times– 1 AD–1500 AD
* Blue for the Age of Discovery and Foundations of Liberty– 1500 AD– 1800 AD
* Yellow for the Fullness of Time–1800 into the future.
When we begin the Book of Centuries, we have the children add their information, their parents' information, when their parents married, when their brothers and sisters were born. I want children to grasp what history is and they are part of history.
Once the children see themselves as part of history, we begin our study with a discussion of Pre-Mortal life which culminates in the Creation and the Fall. In addition to scripture we use the Apostle Bruce R. McConkie's book, "Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie," Chapter Ten: Christ and Creation. The children create a page for each day of the creation. We use McConkie because it is a restored Gospel view. McConkie places the Creation and Fall scenario found in scripture and the temple, side by side. Then they can more clearly understand what the scriptures say and do not say about the creation. My students are then prepared to further research and learn more about the 36 Noble Men and Women from church history, nine artists; nine musicians; 36 mathematicians, explorers, inventors, scientists; 36 statesmen; and nine poets found in the Family Hour that we study each year, then add them to their Book of Centuries. Each child's Book of Centuries will be a treasure of their own making.
Helpful Resources mentioned above:
Book of Centuries
The Family Hour
Leap Into the Love of Learning Class
