Book of Centuries.....

[Great2kids]

Has anyone else had problems with The Book of Centuries Timeline? Everything was going great until Unit 3, Day 2 (World History Guide). All of the Portrait Gallery is full and it says to put them on the lines on the other page but there is no way they will fit without covering up stuff??? It seems like there should be another page for portraits since these pages were made specifically for this program so you wouldn't have to cover up dates or other entries you have already written in on the lines.

[Tabitha]

Following.

I do hope someone sees this and chimes in. We will be starting this guide at the very end of summer. Hopefully it's all worked out by then so I know what to do. My dd goes a bit batty when we run into hiccups like this. Drives me batty listening to her.

[Carrie]

Great2kids,

The Book of Centuries is designed to match our plans and as part of those plans there are a few times when kiddos will glue a figure on the lined timeline page. The figures that need to be used in this manner are meant to go in empty spaces on the lined page, so I am not sure if your child accidentally put an entry on an incorrect line? Or, it is possible that the student just wrote quite large or stretched the entry out beyond where it was supposed to be (as the plans instruct students whether to write on the left, middle, or right side of the line.) This can happen easily! I would just encourage you to have your child erase the lined timeline entry that is in the way and move it to the left or right, or just place the glued entry over top of the lined entry.

The only time we had kiddos use the lined page for a glued image was in cases where there were only one to three extra images that did not fit on the portrait page. This is because with the Book of Centuries covering a timespan from creation to present, we knew once the World Geography and World History guides were done there would be no more timeline entries in the beginning of the Book of Centuries. Since pages need to be added in multiples of two to the Book of Centuries, and with room on the lined pages for the few extra images, we went that route instead.

I do keep a practice template of the Book of Centuries as I write to make sure not to create overlap on the lines or figures. My son and his cousin both had the needed empty space in their Book of Centuries on the lined timeline last year as well, and we did not have any problems noted from the families who used the Book of Centuries with the World History plans last year. So, I know that the plans work with the Book of Centuries. Just be encouraged that if you do have a glitch with an entry your student made that this will be the exception, and in the end your child will have a great overall timeline!

Blessings,
Carrie

[Great2kids]

Thanks for your response Carrie!! I have went over everything again to make sure my son put everything in the places he was suppose to and that all seems to be correct. He also writes very small to try to get everything to fit properly. We finally got the Unit 3, day 2 portraits to fit without covering up anything, but now Unit 4, day 2 says to add "Ancient Native Americans" to the right of "Xia Dynasty". If we put it there it would cover up "City of Ur Falls" That will be 5 pictures on the lined side of the page. There is absolutely nowhere on the page this will fit. Can anyone post a pic of how you got them to fit on yours.

[Mumkins]

The only thing I can think of is if you aren't trimming your pictures down enough? Too much white space around them?

[Motherjoy]

My son never complained about it. And I never checked. Lol.

However, I was curious, so I went back and looked at his. He did have to squish a lot into the first two pages of the BOC. He sort of overlapped the Ancient Native Americans over the Xia dyanasty picture. Then on the timeline, he had to orient pictures in weird ways to get it to fit. Honestly, I don't like that very much, and had I been paying attention I would have been upset by it. Thankfully, I never noticed, and now it doesn't really matter. So, I suggest to just squish it all it and not worry about it. No one will care in 2 years, but yes, its frustrating that there are too many pictures for the spots available.

[my3sons]

Wyatt has completed all of the WG guide, and all but 6 weeks of the WH guide. I snapped pics of his fullest pages of his Book of Centuries notebook...


I think it is turning out beautifully! Maybe you could just have your dc trim more off? The other pages are totally not too full, so these were the only ones I could think of you might be referring to. If you are reading this Merlin (our graphics designer who is our good church friend) and Carrie (who sits at Merlin's side for hours upon hours to make the notebooks) - they are lovely! It is tough to make a Book of Centuries to plan ahead for guides not yet written. So, I'm sure if there needs to be another page or two at some point, that will be figured out as the writing ensues. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie