The Book of Century Revisited

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What is a Book of Century?

The short answer is: it’s a timeline in a notebook. 
A Book of Century is a Charlotte Mason education’s institution. She wanted each child to be able to keep track of historical events and persons in a personalized notebook. 

From Museum Book to Book of Century

One brilliant teacher in one of Charlotte Mason’s PNEU school in the early Twentieth Century took her London pupils to the British Museum of History, it is rich in artifacts and exhibits.The pupils were expected to make sketches and take notes of what they were seeing. They were creating meaningful relationships with the museum exhibits. That was the Museum Book.

It has since grown and evolved to be able to include anything and everything of historical value encountered by our children (and ourselves). I very sporadically keep a personal Book of Century, when I am not helping a younger child with their own.

What is the longevity of a Book of Century

PNEU schools’ students would start working on their Book of Century around age 10, while studying Ancient History. They would maintain their Book throughout their school career and add to it chronologically as they went through history.

Although started around the age of 10, this book was always expected to grow with the student. It was the start of a lifelong habit for all Charlotte Mason’s  students. And truly I find great satisfaction when I keep my own Book of Century. The only downside is that I am not comfortable drawing and therefore, I cheat and use already made illustrations. And that’s ok.

The Benefits

A Book of Century is essential to the creation and deepening of meaningful relationships with history and the people that have preceded us. If we don’t know where we come from, we cannot know where we are going, and neither can our children. A well established habit of keeping a Book of Century is truly a blessed practice we can give our child. It develops many other habits such as attention to detail, organization, working neatly, making notes of important persons or events encountered and why they are worthy of our attention. It helps develop the need for neat and legible handwriting, and sprinkles some math here and there as well.

The Charlotte Mason philosophy has done it again! Encouraging us to create something beautiful and meaningful, worthy of a lifetime’s habit.

My Twist on the Book of Century

The traditional Book of Century uses a two page spread to cover 100 years, or a century. To me this worked beautifully in the early centuries. But as we got closer and closer to ourselves it became very tricky, even for me, to write small enough to leave room for more.

I find these Miller’s Blank History Timeline Book to be the perfect fit for our family. They have A LOT of lovely  and sturdy cardstock pages. I chose the 50 page ones, and are so easy to use. They also have blank cardstock covers which enables the artist in each of us to have a lot of fun!

Tutorial

In this tutorial I use the 50 pages Miller Blank History Timeline Book.

I go right to the middle and put Anno Domini 0 on page 25, in the middle, next to the spiral bound spine on the left page.
(If I had to start again, I would probably put year 0 AD on page 10 rather than page 25. It would be more balanced and would potentially allow to drop down to a notch per year at some point in the Twentieth or Twenty First Century. )

From 0 AD I work backward first. There are 5 notches on each page and I change the scale multiple times to accommodate the knowledge we have of the time period. Remember to mark these slowly as you are going backwards it can get confusing.

Ancient History

From 0 AD to 500 BC, each notch represents 20 years (0, 20, 40, 60 from right to left) 

From 500 BC to to 5000 BC, each notch represents 100 years, still from right to left.

5000 BC (Dawn of civilization) falls, just like 0 AD, in the middle, next to the spiral bound spine on the left page. The rest of that page, going right to left, I leave blank, except for the bottom line which gets fully colored and on which we write: 
←13.4 million years: Stone Age → (up 3300 BC, when the Bronze Age starts)

The pages before the 5000 BC page are left blank intentionally for each person to include his or her own favorite memories. You will also want to keep at least a double page (right before this one) to record creation (one mark per day).

Modern History

From 0 AD to 1000 AD, each notch represents 20 years (0, 20, 40, 60 from left to right) 

1000 AD to 1500 AD, each notch represents 10 years (keeping a century to a double page as per Charlotte Mason principle).

1500 AD to 1850 AD, each notch represents 5 years, putting 50 years on a double page spread. 

1850 AD to 2050 AD, each notch represents 2 years. 

So now that we have the basic math and numbering out of the way, let’s get into the fun stuff!

Labeling

• Time periods: We reserve the bottom 5 lines for time periods, as they often overlap with each other. We pick a color for each time period, ensuring that it won’t be the same color as the time periods around it. We color the whole line on all the pages from the date of its beginning, let’s say 476 AD for the Middle Ages all the way to 1500 AD. Yes, that’s a lot of coloring.  We then label the time period at least once on each double page, usually on the left page. 

• People and events: you can measure (to the centimeter) where to place each date, or just gauge it, lol! Homeschooling at its finest…
  The space between each notch is 6 cm, so that makes fairly easy math. So if someone’s birthday is 450 AD, I will put the mark right at 3 cm on the right of 440 AD. Then we trace a line 1 to 2 cm above the dark middle line before writing the person’s name with birth and death years underneath.

Organization

We have tried different methods, but the one we like best is keeping the top half of the page, above the dark center line, for Biblical and Church history. We then use the bottom half for time periods and world history. 

Color coding was very enticing, especially as we got into the Middle Ages, but it is sometimes just too much work to keep track of the code…

But here is what we had when we color coded:

• Saints: orange
• Artists: pink
• Historical figures: green
• Poets: yellow 
• Musicians: blue

But as we quickly discovered it was becoming very difficult to keep coming up with new colors for new categories such as scientists, authors, cooks and others. So we gave it up and now it looks a little confusing but it’s a work in progress. 

Illustrations

Ideally, each person would illustrate their Book of Century and take the time to make it very personal. But sometimes it can be a chore, depending on each person’s inclination… 

In order to make it easier, we have used Homeschool in the Woods Timeline Figures. These are so easy to print, cut, paste and color. It ensures that we add all the right persons and events, not leaving too much behind. 

We have also used stickers, or copy and pasted illustrations from other sources. We have sometimes printed a very small picture from the internet as well. 
There are many, many ways to do this. This is just our way. But again it has made our life easier and more enjoyable :).

Where does A Daily Picture Book Come in?

By reading daily about a new person or event, not only do you make new friends and expand your horizon but add many, many new figures to your timeline. It is a little counter to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy as A Daily Picture Book is not a chronological study of history but a much more random one. However I have seen the benefit of adding each Daily Picture Book to our Book of Century. Children start to make better relationships between people and events and understand history in a more meaningful way as they encounter each new person or event.

A Good Example

You may vaguely know that Francis Drake lived around the same time as Queen Elizabeth I. But maybe until you add him to the timeline, right against her, it did not click! All the sudden you make the connection between Good Queen Bess, by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema and Francis Drake, His Daring Deeds by Roy Gerard and you understand how the two are related in history. As well as the importance of this relationship, then and now. Everything becomes more clear. It changes your perspective. They are no longer just names in a long list, they are people you KNOW. You have read about them, you have laughed or cried with them, you have written about them and placed them in their rightful place, therefore all of history comes alive and starts to mean something to YOU personally.

In Brief

A Book of Century is definitely worthy of our attention. It is a source of beautiful and useful habits as well as a way to bring deep and meaningful relationships into focus for ourselves and our children.