The “Family Time” materials offer a fascinating journey through Western historical eras, allowing you to dive into the rich tapestry of your civilization's history. By exploring these eras, you gain valuable insights into the cultural, social, and political contexts that shaped Europe and our world. From ancient civilizations to modern times, each era with its carefully selected personalities offers unique lessons and perspectives that enrich our understanding of history and its impact on our lives today.
The “Family Time” set is designed for you to link your individual time to a collective, natural, cultural, and historical timeline. Homeschooling and self-education offer unique opportunities for learning and personal development but also present challenges. One of the main hurdles encountered in initiating basic homeschooling and self-learning is a lack of direction and time, which can lead to scattering and significant time wastage, resulting in discouragement. The “Family Time” aims to overcome these challenges by providing a structured framework that combines time management, learning, and memory retention in a coherent and engaging system. The visual nature of the Annual Calendar facilitates discussion and exploration of various topics for you, your partner, your roommates, or your family members.
Use “Family Time” to Create a Customized Curriculum and Study Plan
The historical characters featured in the Annual Calendar bring these epochs to life, offering you a more personal connection with the past.
The Calendar is divided into 14 historical periods:
- Sumer and Egypt
- Greece
- Rome
- the early Middle Ages
- the late Middle Ages
- the Age of Exploration
- the Wars of Religion
- Absolutism
- the Revolutions
- Industrialization
- the Empire
- the World Wars
- the Post-War era
- the Contemporary World
Each historical period is divided into 28 days, and each day of the week is assigned a specific theme, allowing you to explore different facets of history and human achievements. These themes range from arts and sciences to politics and economics, providing an engaging educational experience. By exploring the lives and achievements of these historical figures, you can deepen their appreciation of the diversity of human accomplishments and the people who have shaped our world.
- White Mondays offer insights into poetry, writings, and psychology.
- Red Tuesdays follow the history of war.
- Orange Wednesdays and Blue Thursdays trace developments in science. Generally, Wednesdays concern innovation and logic, while Thursdays concern discovery, but the themes overlap.
- Green Fridays offer insights into developments in the arts, from classical theater and rhetoric to painting, sculpture, films, and finally video games.
- Deep Purple Saturdays allow learning about historians, politics, and economics, offering perspectives on our historical and current social and political context.
- Yellow Sundays focus on the evolution of classical philosophy, theology, then the developments of classical music and rock and roll.
By following a historical thread, you can create a study program and plan tailored to your interests or a particular theme. Each day gives you a unique and easy opportunity to learn and explore a character while connecting them to their historical period in the overall thread of history. For example, by discovering the medieval musician Guillaume Dufay, you can easily compare his style to those of other past and future musicians, understanding the differences in musicians' styles and the evolution of musical characteristics through historical epochs. All this knowledge, easily visible and found, encompassed in a simple Annual Calendar! Isn't that incredible? ;)
Depending on individual interests, various threads can be followed to create a personalized learning experience. It's important to note that the Annual Calendar will repeat each year, with the characters remaining the same. This ensures that you take time to learn and revisit subjects, as well as the opportunity to explore new areas of interest throughout your life.
Some Discussion Prompts to Consider
Even if your children are very young, get into the habit of discussing the ancestor of the day. Over time, this habit becomes a landmark in the routine of every meal spent together.
From about 5 years old, your child begins to reach a certain maturity that allows them to participate more in your conversations.
- Is there a particular place that is linked to this person? Where did they live, and what does the landscape look like there? Have you ever been there? How did their environment shape their life and work?
- What can the life of the person of the day teach us? Are there lessons or valuable information that we can apply to our own lives?
- Who is the person who influenced this historical character? How did the achievements of their predecessors pave the way for their own contributions?
By participating in these activities and discussions, users can deepen their understanding of historical figures and their contexts, fostering a more meaningful and enriching learning experience.
To make your learning more fun and turn it into deep learning, you can explore the works and works of historical characters, searching for new resources, such as books, articles, documentaries, online courses, trips, and museums, that help you delve deeper into the topics explored in the "Family Time". Parents and children learn together, fostering a rich and lasting learning experience for the whole family.