Age of Exploration Timeline

We've almost made it through our first month of homeschool and we have been having a blast. Last week we went on a field trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach for one of the special Homeschool Day events. We had a great time, learned some new things, and got to spend some time in the classrooms participating in educational activities. For more on our visit, see my blog post on the dandelion moms website here.

In addition to science, we've been learning about the great explorers like Magellan, Columbus, Drake, and da Gama. To reinforce our reading I helped my son put together this fun timeline highlighting some of the most important explorations.

 

We glued the dark blue construction paper onto the light blue construction paper after we cut the waves and the sailing strip. My son added sea monsters, as the legend of giant sea creatures was one of the elements that kept people from venturing out too far into the ocean all those years ago. He also added a sunken ship and a treasure chest.

 

We added five major explorations to our timeline: Columbus in 1492, da Gama in 1497, Magellan in 1519, Verrazano (or Varrazzano) in 1524, and Drake in 1577.

 

I printed up a small picture of a caravel, the popular sailing ship of the time, designed by Prince Henry the Navigator. My son colored it, glued it to a jumbo popsicle stick, and we wrapped a piece of pipecleaner just below the ship so that it doesn't fall through when we hang it on the wall. 

 

This was a fun activity and I think we will use the idea again with a different theme. Do you have any fun timeline activities? Please share your ideas with us below.

 

We used a few other websites for information during our studies. Mr. Nussbaum has lots of information with printable worksheets and online interactive games and activities to reinforce learning. There are some great ideas at the blog The {Art} of Learning, and we liked the ship activity. I couldn't find a template for it though, so I drew my own. You can get a very unprofessional copy of my template here - it might print out with some of the blemishes but you can use it to trace your own.

 

You might also look for these books at the library: The History News: Explorers by Michael Johnstone (Candlewick Press) and Exploring the World by Fiona Macdonald (Peter Bedrick Books). We also used World History by John Farndon and Victoria Parker (Sandy Creek) and the Children's Encyclopedia of American History by David C. King (DK Publishing).

 

I found a lot of other fun activities and information that I listed on my Pinterest page for future reference. Follow me at http://www.pinterest.com/heididealwrites/ to get in on the fun!