The Timeline Year

Focusing your year on a certain part of the timeline can be fun for students!

One way to organize such a study is to divide your school year into months.
Assign dates for each month.

August  1880-1900
September 1900 - 1910
October 1910-1920 
Etc.

Then, ask your students to find and write short reports or draw pictures of something in each category you want to include.  Some categories in each month's time period might be:
Books published
Music written
Artworks
Theater/Films
Architecture :)
Inventions
What was happening historically?
What was happening politically?
Famous people born or died during the dates. (Choose one or the other and stay consistent:).
What was happening in (choose a country).

You could include any topics that stand out for you.

Assignments could depend upon the age."
Write a paper or paragraph (perhaps using IEW checklists) for each one.
Draw a picture or keep a visual journal.
Listen to the music and create a related art piece.
Read a novel published in that time and write about it.

Mix it up a little so that not every topic has a written or drawing assignment.

Students tend to do well when they have the choice of what to study under each topic.  
This also encourages research and allows learning to be outside of a "school" book.

We learned a lot using this method.  
If you try it, I hope you do too:).

Smiles,
Mrs. G.

Note about Math and a Foreign Language - Both of these subjects, in my mind, require incremental learning, which means to me that they need to be attended to every day to build a strong foundation or base.  I encourage beginning the day with prayers, but then 1-2 hours of math (depending upon the age of the student) followed by 1/2 -1 hour of a foreign language.  When they are finished, it is fun to set them free for the rest of the day (or a given period of time.)

If they know what is due each week or month, let them figure out the order that works best for them to complete the tasks.  Teaching them time management early with hands-on experience is a gift that you can give, which will help them tremendously as they are given more responsibilities:).