We have a new timeline in the house all ready for school to start in a couple short weeks! I’ve always wanted to have our timeline on the wall to be more visible but just don’t have any suitable wall space for it. Last year I made one out of Bristol board that we would unfold each week to add our ancient history timeline figures. I planned to use it this year too…until I realized that the span from A.D. 400-A.D. 1600 (which is the time period we’ll be studying this year) was not nearly long enough to hold all our medieval timeline figures. So back to the drawing board I went, wishing I could find a nice wall to use. I really liked the idea of hanging the figures with a clothespin along some sort of twine or string so that you could make room as needed and reuse them in future years.
Finally I realized that these pillars between our dining room and livingroom were patiently waiting to be noticed as the perfect frame for our timeline…and BINGO! I love it! I love that it will be visible but at the same time, up and out of the way of Little Mister’s grabby hands. 
I used some dishcloth yarn from my stash as the string. PJ tied it nice and taught for me so it won’t sag too much (I hope!). Then I tried my hand at a Medieval Celtic font with white chalk on a scrap of black Bristol board.
Each week we’ll use these cute mini clothespins I found on clearance at Michael’s to pin up our timeline figures.
I already had the timeline figures printed for this year on copier paper, assuming that we would be gluing them on to our timeline like last year. Thinking that copier paper might be a little flimsy to hang up in this fashion, I was so tickled to find these business card sized peel and stick self-laminating pouches at the dollar store (50 in a package/$3). They work perfectly! And I can reuse these timeline cards now with our two younger children later.
For now our kids are having fun pretending to go back to the Middle Ages as they cross the threshold into the livingroom. So until school starts our timeline will entertain them as a time machine I guess!
(Timeline figures are from “Tending Our Lord’s Garden” blog. There are awesome notebooking pages for Story of the World there too!)
My Peace in the Puzzle 
What a grand way to display your timeline! I hope your kiddos continue to enjoy it and that the visual reminders stick with them for years to come 🙂
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Me too! Thanks, Kristyn.
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What a great idea! I use the string/clothespin idea to pin our daily routine right now. Our current timeline is a piece of bristol board about three feet long. Every inch is a century (yes, really!). I just write names and dates of people we’re studying. It’s not fancy at all, but it does do what I intended it to do, that is, spark connections in their minds between between Mozart and George Washington, or Buffalo Bill and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I do have a feeling we’ll have to graduate to something a little bigger soon…
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The connections are the point aren’t they. I’m a bit concerned because ours this year only covers the Middle Ages so any poets or artists or composers we learn about this year from more recent times won’t have a spot up there. I might end up unfolding last year’s Bristol board model a few times too!
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We are actually keeping two this year (one century chart and then their regular binder timeline) for that same reason–I wanted to focus on our historical period, but I knew they’d be wanting to add all the “other” figures and events that show up in our studies! 🙂
Anyway, this is a very fun idea and I love how the column just naturally lend themselves to a historical display! I hope you’ll share how it looks later in the year when it’s getting filled up!
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Thanks, Celeste. I’ll try to remember to do that!
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