Family History, Family Activity.

Make Family History a fun Experience for your children
For those of you that know me, know that I have a deep passion for family history. I love it! Sometimes I feel a thirst for it. One of my dreams as a mother is that my children will too have a deep love for their history.

As a young mother, I feel it an incredibly important responsibility to teach my children about their family history and ancestors. To help achieve this, I have decided to take one Monday night out of each month and dedicate it to a family history lesson for my children. Once a month my family will have the privilege to learn about an ancestor from either mine, or my husband's side of the family.

In today's post I am going to share the family history activity we participated in last night. We decided to spotlight the children's great grandmother on my side of the family.

A few days ago when I decided to teach my children of their great grandmother Mary, the ideas just started flowing into my mind! I couldn't wait to share and teach about this incredible person, I was privileged to have in my life as a young girl.

We started out our evening with a fun song to help the children get their wiggles out, and be ready to participate in a night full of fun.

After the song, I held up a few pictures of my grandmother, introduced her, and gave a five minute description of her and how she grew up on a farm.

I was amazed at my children's attention,  how they asked questions, stayed interested, and wanted to learn more.

Next, we gathered at the kitchen table to color a picture of what they thought their grandma Mary looked like. (Making a coloring page is extremely easy to do!) (I just selected a nice picture of Mary, cut out the background, brightened it a little, then turned up the sharpness. Then printed few copies. It only took about 10 minutes to make.)

My kids were really getting into this activity. My oldest son, even drew  himself next to his great grandmother and said to me "mom, this is me standing next to my great grandma. I think she would like this". I can't tell you in words how this made me feel.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we were onto another activity, playing Jacks. This was one of great Grandma Mary's favorite games.
As we pulled out all of the pieces of the game,  placed them on the floor, my children's eyes were lit up with total excitement! They couldn't wait to learn this "new" game. Which they soon learned  was a very old game, and their great grandma played it too, when she was their age.

I felt like this activity was a total success! I heard my children speak of their grandmothers name many times during our activities! Even my two year old twin boys spoke of her.

Family history is something that needs to be taught to our children. Our ancestors have stories that need to be told and shared. They have experiences that were faced that changed lives during their time on earth and can continue to changes lives after they've passed on. It's our responsibility to make sure their Legacy never dies!


While we my kids were busily engaged in their fun activities, I was busy shooting video that will later be tagged to some of the photos you see here. The photo collection with photos will later be given to my children when they get older to cherish and hopefully pass on to their children.

These were the materials I used for the activity night.

• Three ring binder to file what we did for the evening.
• Coloring page I made of the ancestor we were spotlighting.
• The game Jacks. This was one of our spotlighted ancestor's favorite game as a child.
• A short description of the ancestor with pictures.

This book will be something my children will get a chance to study and continuing to learn from for years to come.

 

Fun easy coloring page I made using Heritage Collector Storybook. Took about 10 minutes to make.





 

A game used to spotlight as a fun activity. (yes for those in the family, I did change her name for protection)

 

 

What will be filed away for safe keeping. All of the coloring pages were filed behind the one you see here.

 

Thanks for visiting today! I hope you enjoyed this post. As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback! Leave me a quick note. :)

 

Your can learn more about what I love to do HERE!

 

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