A timeline of History

I have been wanting to make a timeline to hang up that as we read books (my oldest on her own, or my husband or I to the kids) we could draw a picture to go with it and place it on a timeline. That way we would be able to get a picture in our minds of how everything fits together in history. We are getting ready to move our girls into a bigger room and I think the wall in there will work well for hanging up a large timeline. I found one that I liked at this site. I printed it out and now maybe I will go have it laminated at Office Max.
I also plan on hanging a world map that we have up on the wall. With that we can make note of where the places are that we are reading about.
Have any of you ever done something like this with your kids? How did it work and do you have any other ideas to suggest?