A few years ago Diana wrote about a youth activity she created with a Mission: Possible Theme. I recently adapted this idea so the missions could all be completed using the Family Tree app on a smartphone. This was a really successful activity and I’m excited to share my adaptation along with all the materials you will need to carry out the activity with your own youth group or family. Youth and leaders alike enjoyed themselves and commented about how much fun they had. Some voiced their surprise that a family history activity could be so much fun. What...
I have a great family history activity for children to share today – teaching children to find names for the temple by doing family history research with historical records! The activity was created by Alana Anderson. Alana lives in an LDS stake near me in Tucson. She is an activity day leader and did the Finding Franklin Time Machine Activity with her group. It went so well, that she decided to create a “Family History Mystery” activity to take it a step further with her own family, and share it at her stake activity days event. The girls and their...
I recently helped with a neighboring stake’s Family Discovery Day. I was delighted to be contacted about it. We came up with family history ideas to keep the children busy for 3 hours while their parents attended the classes. I was just one of the people who helped, and each person who did had unique and wonderful ideas. The kids all had a great time! My friend who was teaching an adult class heard a girl tell her mother, “I thought it was going to be boring, but it was so fun!” Let me tell you about it. The stake...
Do you live in the Salt Lake City area or are you planning a visit in the near future? 24 July 2017 marks the 170th anniversary of the first wave of Mormon pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley. What better way to celebrate your pioneer heritage than to load up the children and go on an adventure. Here are 13 places to check out, along with maps, links, and tips for parent/grandparent survival. East of Salt Lake City 1. This is the Place Monument 2601 Sunnyside Ave S., Salt Lake City Located to the east of Salt Lake City, is...
Today I’m sharing a memorable and inspirational stake activity days event that I recently attended for 8-11 year old girls. Since I’m not in that age range, I’ll explain why I attended! After the Tucson family history fair when I shared my presentation, “Kid Genealogists,” I was lucky enough to chat with two incredible primary leaders. One was a friend who I had worked with before our stake boundaries changed (and who also shared a guest post here). These lovely ladies told me about their upcoming stake activity days event which would include a class about family history. I invited myself,...
Today, we have a guest post by one of our readers, Lindsey Crouch. Lindsey found our post about teaching youth to use census records, then adapted it for a younger age group. She’s here to share her documents and lesson plan so anyone can recreate the activity to teach children about census records. Enjoy! -Nicole —- Hi, I’m Lindsey I’m originally from Idaho and graduated from Utah State in social work. I’m a life-long learner and a mom to a 2-year-old boy. I only started doing family history research about a year and a half ago, and I’m glad I finally got on board. My...
Need a fun activity to help your youth learn to research census records? “Finding Franklin” gives them the opportunity to discover the wealth of information that can be found in a census. Questions about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States lead the youth to find specifics about his family and occupation over a span of 48 years. They can then use the skills they’ve developed to find their own family in the census records. I created this to use with FamilySearch.org, but you could try it with Ancestry.com or MyHeritage.com also. Each website has different search boxes and filters, so...
Do you need a fun activity to help the youth in your ward get interested in family history? How about a Family Home Evening or Sunday activity for the whole family? Try MISSION POSSIBLE and see that it is possible to do family history! I created the MISSION POSSIBLE youth activity in response to Elder Anderson’s Find, Take, Teach Challenge. Purpose We wanted to give the youth in our ward an opportunity to teach their families about family history. After discussing this in our family history committee, we decided to train the youth with FamilySearch.org and some of the great apps associated with...
For Christmas last year, I hosted a craft night for my friends. We made these easy, quick photo pendants! I first saw these at a family reunion, where some of the adult granddaughters had created them for the girl cousins. I thought they were so pretty and so symbolic of keeping memories of family close to our heart. These photo pendants make unique, affordable gifts. For the girls in my husband’s family, I made six of the same pendant with a photo of their grandmother. I made one for each of my grandmas with pictures of their mothers. Later, my ward asked me to...
Our ward family history committee, consisting of youth and adult consultants, planned this ward activity for all ages. Held on a Thursday evening it took the place of the combined activity for the young men and young women that week. Each organization had an assignment and each youth group ran one of the activities. One of our consultants did a fabulous job transforming the cultural hall into an old time country fair. Using the color theme of red, white, blue, and yellow, she displayed homemade quilts and added balloons and banners for a festive look. Table centerpieces consisted of bags...
