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Genealogy / Family History
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Anyone know of any really good resources (pref. free or possible to get at a library) for Family History for kids around age 6-8 ish?
I’ve done genealogy since I was 15 so you think I’d know how to get kids interested in it…. but I don’t! I’ve had “Family History” on our schedule for 2 years but have done NOTHING at all so I need to find a resource to use.
My original plan was that the first term on the first year they would learn about me…. the 2nd term about their dad… the 3rd term about one of the grandparents…. and the 2nd year they would learn about the rest of the grandparents (1 per term) and then years after that they could chose one of the grandparent’s lines to learn about – eventually even doing some research. But as I said, every week when family history time would be coming up – we’d end up skipping it.
So… any suggestions?
Well, we have never had any special “kid” resources. We just always involved the kids in what we do. We do a lot of family history, all kinds of stuff, and the kids “do” everything with us. One thing we did often when they were younger was to print up a calendar with birthdates on it of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, great-grandparents and then we threw a “Happy Birthday” whenever a birthday came up, and I pulled out my stuff and we read about their lives, looked at whatever pictures I had, and I asked them to identify things that would have happened in history in their lives (like the Depression or the Civil War or whatever). That was always fun–they begged for it when I quit doing it, so we did it a while longer! We also had frequent family evening lessons focusing on family history–one year we made a small “flag” for each country our identified ancestors came from and put their family names to the side, and we still have the poster. We also often made recipes and did cultural activities based on the countries our ancestors came from. We also always just took them with us to our local library, local family history center, and we tried to make one family-history related stop on every vacation, and the kids just came wherever with us–cemeteries, courthouses. As they grew we involved them in headstone-hunting for others on sites like FindaGrave, for other people, and we have involved them in “helping” us index records for inclusion on internet genealogy sites. (Some of my kids can now index work on their own, but I always would call everyone in when I found something interesting or needed help deciphering a name or something). We read stories of things other people have done, and we have our own “family history interview” program where we pick a couple of people to interview on the phone or the internet and write down and compile what they tell us. So I don’t know of any formal “program” but we were fascinated by this and it has been a big part of our home.
WOW! O.K. Bookworm, you are my official homeschool hero!
I have also been wanting to do some sort of family history type learning for a couple years now. I was thinking we could start working on a family tree for one side of the family and then work on a family tree for the other side the next year. But, I just did not know how to start, what to expect from the kids as far as work and understanding went or what our finished project should look like. So I, like suzukimom, have skipped it so far! Sometimes I look at all that I want to do with and teach my kids and cringe, because I just don’t know HOW to get to it all.
Well, thank you, suzukimom, for posting this. Maybe it will inspire me to try again. ; ) Sorry I couldn’t actually give any help!
-Miranda
One thing we did was scrapbook all the old photographs we had from the family on both sides, the girls helped with that. I made a questionnaire for the girls to take to their grandparents, aunts and uncles so they could learn as much as they could. When our parents passed on, we did not want to have regrets that we had not asked about the relatives and memories of that generation. The girls would interview the relatives and then write up the family stories. They took photos to my mum and dad and had them identify the people and they made notes on everyone. Now that all our parents are gone, I am so glad we did that. It makes geneology very easy now that we have all the info to go with the photos. My mum had done that with her parents so we were able to go back a long time. Linda
Linda, my cousin did that with my Grandpa and Grandma, then they put them all on a DVD disc and sent one to all the family: aunts, uncles, cousins, brother and sisters, etc. What a fun thing. We liked to tease my Grandma about her “cheesecake” picture that she took while in her amazingly modest swimsuit in early 1940 before she sent Grandpa off to WWII. She wasn’t trying to pose, so we really had fun with it. I miss her a lot. =)
One of my daughters is named after her Great, Great Grandmother. Her daughter was aunt to my Grandma, and was alive a few years ago. Aunt R was writing to my mom about family history, and so I wrote to Aunt R and asked if she would write to my S about her mom, also named S. She did write her a few times before she passed away -my S. has a great personal link between 4-5 generations of ladies in her line. It was so fun to read about Gma S in first person.
My mom has been writing up stories about ancestors. She has given us binders and every year for Christmas she tries to send us new stories. They are short, but my kids like to find them on our charts. We go to some church historical sites and look for the property that my grandparents owned there.
My sister has been using the map locater thing on the computer and sending us all pictures of houses that we lived in when we were younger. She thought that it would be a fun thing to show all our kids.
My mom decided that one year, as usual, there was not enough money to send store-bought presents to my nieces and nephews. She wrote them each a letter every week (month?) and mailed it to them. In it she talked about her memories of herself at their age, her testimony of Christ, and of her love for each of them. I think that would be such a neat bond…what a treasure to keep.
I love the ideas from Bookworm! I think that we should do that in our house – and it might help my DH to help me find out about his family. I only know his Grandma Rose – no other names. =) My youngers (2 and 3) will love any excuse to sing “Happy to You” =) (That is their new thing- we had so many birthdays in March)
Not alot of how to involve your kids in the actual search, but maybe you can get some ideas from ours. =)
Although, maybe you could get a big paper to cover a door and let the kids turn it into a big tree. Draw lines for where the people go and let them help you hunt up the pictures, names, dates, etc… My kids would like it just for the hands on part.
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