Have you taught the children in your life about food rationing? Charlotte's timely post today is about a food shortage role-play activity she did with her children. I love that she taught about her grandmother's experience with rationing in Hawaii during WWII and tied that together with today's chaotic circumstances. I wholeheartedly agree with Charlotte that learning about our ancestors surviving troubled times gives us strength when our lives are upturned. I hope you enjoy this guest blog post. -Nicole Early last Saturday morning, I got in my van alone and braved a rare Washington blizzard to pick up a...
Today I'm sharing a guest post from Charlotte Barnes, author of the new book Turning Little Hearts: Over 90 Activities tot Connect Children with their Ancestors. Charlotte is sharing a fun idea for teaching children about the character traits of ancestors by creating a man out of a paper bag! This easy activity takes minimal time to set up and provides an opportunity to learn about ancestors in an engaging way. To watch a video of Charlotte's family doing this activity, click here. - Nicole Share Ancestor Character Traits with Kids: A Simple Activity by Charlotte Barnes In a rare, quiet...
Do you need a fun way to engage your small children with family history? Look no further. One of my favorite ways to introduce family history to little kids is with this felt family tree activity. Showing a toddler a family photo album is fun, but it's even more fun to show them pictures of their ancestors on an interactive felt chart with movable pieces! I have made these for each of my kids and several friends, neighbors, nieces and nephews. They love having a way to talk about family history with little ones while playing. We will have over...
I'm excited to share a new book with you today - Turning Little Hearts-Over 90 Activities to Connect Children with their Ancestors by Charlotte & Jonah Barnes. (This is an affiliate link). Charlotte reached out and asked if we would like to feature the book on our website. I love helping children connect to their roots, so I jumped at the chance! Charlotte wrote this guest blog post to introduce the book and share what you might find inside. Learn more about Charlotte and Jonah Barnes and their book at their website, Turning Little Hearts. Turning Little Hearts-Over 90 Activities to...
Alexis Maurer who writes the blog The Adventures of the Baby Genealogist is sharing a guest blog post about family history for children. I'm excited for you to hear her great ideas! She does a lot of fun things to teach her small children about family history. -Nicole There is a power in connecting with another person. When we create that special bond in our families, our children and grandchildren are affected for the better. Letter writing can be a powerful way to connect. I feel it is slowly becoming a lost art to actually take the time to write something...
The recording of "Families Discovering Family History Together," my RootsTech 2019 presentation with Olivia Jewell and Jana Greenhalgh was just released on the RootsTech Video Archive page. I loved preparing for this class and presenting it with two other moms who are just as passionate about sharing family history with our children and families as I am. Check out Olivia's blog here: Liv's Treehouse and Jana's blog here: The Genealogy Kids. I talked about my five-year-old daughter's experience finding strength from her brave female ancestors during an ER visit, our farmer ancestor role play experience, and making felt family trees...
During RootsTech, Nicole and I had the opportunity to sit down with Mike Sandberg from FamilySearch and learn more about the new In-Home Activities page that he and his team designed. This was a project that took two years to develop. It all began with a council about the best way to get families involved in family history. Elder Ian S. Ardern of the Seventy suggested that “it all starts with a conversation.” Figuring out how to get more family members involved in conversations about their family was the first step. Brother Sandberg added that the job of doing family...
I'm excited to introduce our new guest blogger, Alice Childs. Alice is a temple and family history consultant for her stake in Highland, Utah. Her passion for helping consultants succeed led to the creation of her blog, Souls to Bless, where she regularly posts ideas and inspiration for Temple and Family History Consultants from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. - Nicole A few years ago, my daughter was assigned to complete the Meyers-Briggs personality test for a high school psychology class. After the students had completed the test, the teacher grouped the students according to personality types...
Children can help their families find names for the temple and learn how to navigate the FamilySearch Family Tree at the same time! Here is a worksheet for children to use as they search for icons in FamilySearch. I made this worksheet for a one-day family history camp for children at the Tucson Family History Center. My friend organized the event for the primary children in her stake. This was just one of the stations the children visited that day. They completed the worksheet with the help of youth family history consultants. Click here to download a PDF of the...
This post is part of the #FHforChildren Linkup, “Learning Family History Through Play.” My children love to dress up and pretend, so I've been brainstorming ways to teach them about the past as they pretend. Role playing is a fun way to learn how people work. From doctors to train conductors, kids love imitating the occupations of grown ups. I thought this would be a good way to teach them about our farming ancestors. Were any of your ancestors farmers? It seems like almost everyone descends from farmers. Agriculture was the way of life for almost everyone 200 years ago....
