KIDS LOVE ARTS AND CRAFTS! TRY AN ‘ARTS AND CRAFTS IDEA’ AND USE THEIR CREATIVITY TO INSPIRE CHILDREN TO LOVE FAMILY HISTORY!

Turn an old photo of an ancestor or ancestral place into a coloring page using Photoshop Elements.

1. Draw a picture of an ancestor.

2. Draw an ancestor surrounded by things that were important to him or her.

3. Draw an ancestor eating favorite foods, playing a favorite sport, working at his or her job, doing something he or she loved, or with family members.

4. Draw a scene from a story about an ancestor.

5. Draw multiple pictures connecting scenes from an ancestor’s life in a book or comic form.

6. Draw stories using an app and turn them into a movie.

A family tree can be handwritten on paper or made on the computer or tablet. However, I recommend having a paper copy visible for children in their room or somewhere in the house so they don’t have to be on a device to see it. Most family history websites make it easy to print out a family tree. If children are old enough to have their own subscription to a family history website (eight years old for familysearch.org), they can print it out themselves. Another option is to print out a blank family tree and encourage them to fill it in themselves. Family trees put the pieces of the generational puzzle together. Children will be able to visualize all of their ancestors they are learning about and see how they are connected.

“Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection… Playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.”

— Jill Suttie, Psychologist, “How Music Bonds Us Together,” Greater Good Magazine, June, 2016

Does your family have special songs they know and sing? Learn, sing and compile songs that were part of a wedding, military service or funeral; or songs that were sung during holidays, at bedtime, while camping or just listened to together. What is the story behind them? Children love songs and remember songs easily. Sing them whenever you can. Songs can tell stories, share culture and most importantly connect generations.

In scripture sometimes it says, “____ who was the son of ____, ____ who was the son of ____,” and so on. How would your ancestor list be? Start with your name and write your own based on the male or female line of your family tree? For girls it would be “____ who was the daughter of ____, ____ who is the daughter of ____, ____ who is the daughter of ____.”

Write a poem or song about an ancestor’s life or about a specific story or character trait they had.

Making maps helps children to visualize where ancestors lived, traveled or moved throughout their lives. The following are a few different types of maps that can help children visualize their ancestors’ experiences.

Map 1: Make a map representing a specific ancestor’s life. Some ancestors stayed in one town or state their whole lives so their maps would be of a specific town or state. Some ancestors, such as immigrants or military personnel, traveled or moved between countries or continents, so their maps would be of a country or the world. Lines can be drawn from one place to the next to show the sequence of locations where ancestors moved or traveled. These locations can be discovered through documents or an ancestor profile on a family history website. By looking at the map, children may naturally be curious about modes of transportation at the time their ancestor was alive. How long would it have taken to travel by foot, train, boat, or even an early car or airplane? They can also compare current modes of transportation to the past.

Map 2: Buy, print or draw a large map of the world. This is a general map for locations of many ancestors. Make it for four, five, six, or seven generations back. Every time you learn of a place an ancestor lived, mark it with a sticker or pin. Children will be able to see all the places their ancestors have lived by looking at this one map. Tag the sticker or pin with the ancestor’s name so when a family member is traveling, you can quickly find out which ancestors lived near that area and visit some of the locations.

Map 3: Get a black-and-white map of a specific continent online and print it. Children can color the countries that ancestors are from and color-code specific families or branches of their tree if desired.

What You Will Need:

A copy of a photo of each of your ancestors’ faces
The same number of canning lids as photos
A pencil or pen
Scissors
Decoupage
A paint brush
A nail
A hammer
Thin ribbon or string
A permanent marker

Instructions:

Use a canning lid to trace a circle on one of the copied photos, around the face of your ancestor.
Cut out the circles slightly smaller than the traced circle so the photo will fit inside the ridge of the lid.
Use the paint brush to spread decoupage on the lid.
With the photo-side facing you, press the photo gently in the center of the lid.
Paint decoupage on top of the photo and over the edge of the photo to seal it onto the lid. Set the lid aside to dry.
Repeat with each lid and photo.
When the decoupage is dried, use the nail and hammer to make a hole in the top of each ornament.
On the back of the canning lid, use a permanent marker to write information, such as your ancestor’s name, birth and death dates, where he or she lived, relation to you, or any other details you want to remember.
Put a piece of ribbon or string through the hole and tie it in a bow.
The ornament is now ready to hang!

Making the stories of your ancestors come to life will solidify the stories in a child’s memory. You and your children can make up a skit of an event or experience that your ancestors went through and perform it. Children can do this on their own if they desire. They can write a script, assign roles, think of props, practice and perform. As the people in the story come to life, your children will gain a deeper appreciation for their ancestors’ experiences and learn from them in a deeper way. The skit can be performed simply as child’s play, for the family, or for extended family at a get-together or a family reunion. You can keep the scripts of these performances and perform them again and again. They can even be recorded and watched over and over.

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