When I'm with other homeschooling families, we talk about many things regarding homeschooling. However, almost always the talk turns to making timelines. Some have simple timelines copied from a book, others draw them, and of course there are many who enjoy hanging a timeline in the kitchen, with elaborate dates and pictures! If you don't have a lot of room, time or creativity to create timelines, then I believe you will find Easy Timeline Creator to be a wonderful tool to add to your homeschool curricula.

Easy Timeline Creator is a software program that runs on many formats from Windows 98, NT, ME, 2000, XP professional and XP Home. In addition Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 and later is required.

You need a computer with:
CDROM Drive
64MB RAM (128 recommended)
Printer

Installation is very easy and quick.

Some of the features you will find in this program are :
Easy event entry
Support for single date events
Clipart
Categories
Adjust timeline scale to days, weeks, months etc
Era support for BC and AD data.
Adjustable font, size, color
Auto placement of events
Move and resize
Print to fit page
Color print
and many other neat and fun options.

Making a timeline is very easy with this program. Everything is explained in easy to understand instructions. You can start a new timeline or open an existing timeline. Pick the time period that you want, an event or a day. You can add science, literature and other developments of a certain time, to your timeline. This is an extremely helpful tool, that my kids found useful to add to the timeline to enhance the time period they were working on.

As a homeschooling mom, with children 11 and 15, I often base my curricula on whether my children can use it with ease. In the case of Easy Timeline Creator, it couldn't be more easier and fun for my children. Dates can be dry and boring, hard to remember and for some, hard to learn. However with the timeline, children can see at a glance where the events took place in the scope of the history of the world, what discoveries where made, some famous people who lived, what wars were taking place and so forth. Suddenly dates are more interesting!

Easy Timeline Creator can be as plain as you want or as colorful and full as you want. Sometimes, you just want to show a date or event during a lesson, without a lot of extras. Other times you want your timeline to be a project with frills! Easy Timeline Creator can do all options for you.

One of the parts I really enjoy about this program is the clipart! Once again, it can be as plain or fancy as you want it to be! There are icons of events, such as swords, music notes, etc. You can add small pictures, such as period dress, art, and war posters. Many are in color, so its easy to find an event on a longer timeline. There is also plenty of room to add your own icons by hand if you would like to do so after printing. What if you make a mistake! No problem, like many other software programs, its easy to delete, erase or start over.

I believe that Easy Timeline Creator would be a great program to add to your homeschool curriculum. This product can be used not only with history, but science, art, literature and world culture. Older children will enjoy the way it enhances reports or projects. Younger children will find it easier to understand dates and history using the colorful clipart and moms and dads will appreciate that using a computer software program vs. a book will take up less space, and be more interesting for the children. I highly recommend this software program, for all ages. It is truly a tool that will be used often in your home.