I haven't had a chance to post a sneak peek for awhile, as we've been fighting off Influenza B at our house right now. I could not believe that we got it, after all of us having Influenza A after Christmas, so it's been an interesting time of it!
Tonight's sneak peek brings me much joy, as we are headed into a new CM 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 will begin having the students keep a Book of Centuries as part of their high school level geography and history studies.
We have researched and read much about CM's version of a Book of Centuries. There is much to love about her approach, so ours will be similar to her approach in some ways and a bit different in others. Our Book of Centuries will have a two page spread for each century, CM-style (except for the earlier centuries that will be combined as there are less known dates and events to record from earlier in history). The right side of each two-page spread will have horizontal lines with each line representing an increment of 5 or 10 years in the century. To record an event on the timeline, students will first locate the correct century. Then, they will 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 will be 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 will be 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 is putting together a CD of images specifically to meet our World Geography guide's needs. We are so blessed by her willingness to partner with us and to allow our students to benefit from her beautiful hand-drawn timeline images and descriptions. Students will be able to print her images from the customized CD for use in our 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. wink: 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 will be 3 hole-punched for insertion in a binder).
Students will keep the Book of Centuries all 4 years of high school. It will seek 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 look forward to our children having this experience. Perhaps, it will be a reference tool for them for years to come. Blessings,
Carrie