how to organize timeline

[Adasmommy]

We just started reading a US history book (I think it's called the Story of US) and I'm really excited about creating a timeline for my 8 year old daughter to fill in. But there are so many possibilities, I am frozen with indecision!

Really, I have come a long way toward deciding what I want.  I want a book, not a wall timeline.  But I want the book to contain several epochs folded accordion style (rather than loose pages) so that we can unfold and look at an entire chunk of history in a visual line.  Like this one: http://www.whythereyouare.com/homeschool/timeline.htm

I am not buying figures for the timeline.  We'll google image, photocopy, or make our own.

The questions still remaining are:

How many years to fit on one page?  I love the idea of making it uniform throughout but I don't think it's practical, particularly as we will be representing an evolutionary version of history.

How to divide each page? I like the idea of dividing each page into sections like in the link above.  She does geographical regions, so each section of timeline shows what is happening in different parts of the world at the same time. I've also seen them divided into subjects like Art, Technology/Inventions, Politics, etc  It's so hard for me to forsee what sort of things will go on here, so I can't decide which kind of division I like better.

What are your favorite timeline set ups?  Is there anything I'm not thinking of?  Thank you!

[moominmamma]

Confession: we have never actually made a timeline. My kids just weren't into parent-planned projects like this.

However, I thought about doing it a lot, and had banked a suggested approach that I really liked using a logarithmic organization. 

One unit on the timeline will cover the most recent 10 years (2002-2012). This allows your child to include a lot of personal data and memories: I was born, I learned to ride a bike, we went to visit Uncle Mike's family in Florida, that sort of thing.

The preceding unit covers the preceding 100 years (1902-2002). This will include a fair bit of recorded history, but also a lot of family history. 

The preceding unit covers the preceding 1000 years (902 to 1902). All sorts of cool recorded history fits in here.

The preceding unit covers the 10,000 years before that (~9000 BCE to 902 CE). The dawn of civilization through the fall of the Roman Empire.

The preceding unit is 100,000 years before that. Human evolutionary refinement.

and so on, back through powers of ten.

Just a thought!

Miranda

[eirual]

My first thought was cue-cards taped together to go accordion-style.

You could maybe even do a powerpoint presentation?