How do high school students keep a Book of Centuries?

How do high school students keep a Book of Centuries?

I am new to Heart of Dakota (HOD) and new to Charlotte Mason. Basically, I have read all I can on both until my eyes have become weary. I am happy to say my only daughter will be doing HOD’s World Geography guide for 9th grade this fall. We are both over the moon about this coming year! I’m sure about placement, but my daughter and I were just wondering how the Book of Centuries is kept? She is excited about this part, but we are new to it. Will we need to do a lot of figuring out how to keep this on our own? Or, will there be quite a bit of guidance for the Book of Centuries?

Sincerely,

“Ms. Please Help Us Understand the Book of Centuries”

Dear “Ms. Please Help Us Understand the Book of Centuries,”

Keeping a Book of Centuries is a skill that pairs so well with high school age students. The skill is that of keeping a timeline and of gaining a mental picture of those individuals and events that share a century. So, we begin having the students keep a Book of Centuries as part of their high school level geography and history studies.

We researched and read much about Charlotte Mason’s (CM’s) version of a Book of Centuries. There is much to love about her approach, so our Book of Centuries is very similar to her approach in some ways and a bit different in others. Our Book of Centuries has a two-page spread for each century, CM-style (except for the earlier centuries that are combined as there are less known dates and events to record from earlier in history). The right side of each two-page spread has horizontal lines with each line representing an increment of 5 or 10 years in the century.

Recording an Event in the Book of Centuries

To record an event on the Book of Centuries’ timeline, students first locate the correct century. Then, they write a word or phrase to represent the event on the correct line within that century, writing nearer to the left end of the line if the event was early in the time increment, in the middle of the line if the event was mid-way through the time increment, or nearer to the right end of the line if it was toward the end of the time increment. This allows students to see at a glance events that defined the century.

The left side of each two-page spread is a portrait/picture gallery of people/events from the century. People are harder to place on a written timeline, as their lives span a larger period of time than an event, so many of the images within the gallery will be people. Some are civilizations or empires, because these also span a longer period of time and are harder to place on a written timeline.   The wonderful news about this portrait/picture gallery is that Amy Pak has put together a CD of images specifically to meet our World Geography guide’s needs. Amy partnered with us to allow our students to benefit from her beautiful hand-drawn timeline images and descriptions. We are so thankful to Amy! Students print her images from the customized CD for use in our Book of Centuries.

Comparing and Contrasting HOD’s Book of Centuries to Charlotte Mason’s Book of Centuries

This portrait gallery replaces CM’s version of the left side of the two-page spread, as she instructed her students to draw artifacts, clothing, and instruments from the century on the left page. While this is also a great visual for the century, as part of this assignment CM students regularly visited museums to sketch from the real artifacts. From our perspective, this idea is difficult to execute, as we don’t all regularly visit museums.

It is also difficult to plan for spacing-wise in the Book of Centuries over the years, takes more time than we desire to spend on this area at the high school level, and relies heavily on having access to artifacts (or to images of artifacts) that coordinate well with what is studied. Plus, for those who wish to pursue the artifact sketching, it is easy to add into our Book of Centuries (as the Book of Centuries is 3 hole-punched for insertion in a binder).

Keeping a Book of Centuries Through High School

Students keep the Book of Centuries all 4 years of high school. The Book of Centuries seeks to provide a visual snapshot of each century that is not soon forgotten. I find it interesting that CM was not focused upon memorizing exact dates in which events occurred. Instead, she felt that comprehending a flow of time was more important. In thinking back on how many historical dates I memorized, and then forgot, throughout my high school and college years, it is interesting to note that I still struggle to place things within a flow of time.

I have little memory of what events or people share a century. I must continually refer to timelines to refresh my memory as to what happened when and what events proceeded others. CM’s reasoning and thoughts on the keeping of a Book of Centuries truly resonate with me! I have enjoyed our children having this experience, and their Book of Centuries has become a reference tool for them that they have enjoyed using time and time again – even outside of homeschooling.

Blessings,
Carrie