Category: Timelines

Personal History Roadtrip

7/9/2015

Wherever we may be, my husband and I are big fans of stopping to read historical markers. So, even at their relatively young ages, our kids are familiar with the purpose and importance of historical markers.

This blog is mostly about trying to help kids learn about the lives of their ancestors, but before they can really understand and appreciate the importance of certain events in an ancestor's life, they need to be able to view their own lives as a continuum of similar events and accomplishments. Once they reflect upon their own lives, they will have a better understanding of WHY preserving our ancestors' lives and stories is so important.

Kids live their lives 'in the now.' They don't spend much time looking back at their past accomplishments. But I'm here to tell you know that they SHOULD look back every now and then. Adults are always trying to get children to learn something new or improve upon their skills - always moving forward - but there is value in showing a child how far they have already come. So, today I'm going show you how I created a representative 'roadtrip' of personal historical markers for my 7-year-old son.

Personal History Roadtrip

Supplies needed:
Black posterboard
Ruler
Pen or Pencil
Scissors
White electrical tape
Glue
White paper with which to make the road markers
Computer with printer and internet access (optional)

First, measure out and cut a black posterboard into three equal-width strips. (With my posterboard, I ended up with three 7" wide strips.) When you tape these together, they will be your road. Next, simply find the middle of the strips and cut short pieces of white electric tap to make the road lines.

Next, I used Microsoft Word to create simple shapes for the historical markers. You can also just as easily cut out the shapes by hand.

You and your child will have to decide what important life events to include on the markers. You could write it out in narrative form or, as we did, just list the facts of each event. We chose some of the obvious important events like, birth, baptism, first day of school, and learning to walk. We also included things like first major league baseball game and learning how to read. To make each marker more visually-appealing, we downloaded symbols to represent each event at openclipart.org. Then, we glued the markers to the road.

Example of one 'historical' marker

Can't have a roadtrip without a vehicle, so we also downloaded a car image from openclipart.org. We placed it at my son's most recent big accomplishment (riding a bike), and the car will move forward every time we add a new marker. And don't forget to make sure the road goes on past the most recent marker. Kids will have fun striving towards new accomplishments worthy of being a part of their own personal history roadtrip! I plan on hanging this up in my son's room, so he always has a reminder of everything he has done so far.

This idea also can be used to create timelines of ancestors' lives. Thanks for reading, and remember all activities featured on this blog can be found on the Activities page of GrowingLittleLeaves.com

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Ancestor Cup Timeline

3/20/2015

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Ancestor Cup Timeline

I'm always looking for unique, interactive ways in which to help my children create and understand timelines. In general, timelines are great for teaching kids about historical events, but they can also be effectively used to illustrate and understand our ancestors' individual lives. I came across a pin on Pinterest entitled Stacked: Learning With Styrofoam Cups. One of the activities illustrated on the page was creating a historical timeline using simple white Styrofoam Cups. I thought this would work great for creating an ancestor's timeline, so that's what we did!

Supplies:

Styrofoam cups
Photos, symbols, newspaper clippings, documents related to ancestor's life
Scissors
Glue or clear packing tape
Black marker

First, you must decide which life events you want to be represented in the timeline. I chose to make one for my maternal grandmother (my kids' great-grandmother). I included the main events, such as birth, death, marriage, graduation, and births of children. I also included other events such as immigration and joining the military, which are more unique to her life. You could also include events like moving, receiving sacraments, starting a new job, retirement - it's really up to you and your child. Once you choose the events you are going to include, write each year on the lip of a Styrofoam cup.

The next step is to find photos, symbols, newspaper clippings, or other documents to represent these different life events. Be creative! For example, I didn't have a photo of my grandmother emigrating from Italy, so, instead, I printed out a small clipping from her passenger ship manifest that shows her name, along with her mom's and sister's names. You could also just print out a clip art image of a ship or plane to represent immigration. I found a small newspaper clipping which mentioned my grandmother's work in the U.S. Coast Guard, so I printed it out and taped it, along with a photo of her in uniform, to that cup. It's a great way to introduce children to some of the records we use in genealogical research.

Cup representing immigration

Cup representing Coast Guard service

It was easiest for us to simple use clear packing tape to attach the photos, pictures, and newspaper clippings to each cup. Using glue was taking a little longer, because we had to hold the image around the cup until the glue dried. I also think the packing tape with hold up more in the long run as the cups are stacked and unstacked multiple times by the kids.

I also recommend writing a 1-2 word description of each event on the cup on the opposite side of the date.

Not only is this a great activity for teaching a child about one of his or her ancestors, but it also helps the child develop a sense of the past. Getting kids to look at dates and helping them understand the progression of years is an important step in understanding family history. You may find that the child would like to make a cup timeline of his or her own life, which would be a great idea!

For older children, I recommend making cups to represent important events in local or national history that influenced your ancestor's life. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard SPARS would never have been created if WWII hadn't happened, and my grandmother's life would have likely taken a completely different path if she hadn't joined the SPARS and subsequently met her future husband at a USO event. Adding these bigger events to your ancestor's timeline will help children realize the importance of historical events AND it will (hopefully) give them a sense of how their own lives are influenced by the current events of today.

Ancestor Cup Timeline

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The Shoe Box Timeline

5/28/2014

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The idea of 'timelining" your ancestors has been prominent in recent years among genealogy researchers. Timelines help us organize our sources, create a story of our ancestors' lives, and place their lives into perspective within the larger realms of local and world history. Several genealogy software programs these days offer the option to create timelines from our family trees, and there are even some websites that will do it for you, too.

While young children do not necessarily have a mature concept of time, they do understand the progression of basic life events: birth and school as children, marriage and having children as adults, death (usually) as an older person. I wanted to create a fun, hands-on way to teach my son about one of his ancestors using a timeline. So, we created a shoe box timeline. Here are the materials you will need:

- Empty shoe box with lid.
- Exacto knife or sharp scissors that will cut through the shoe box.
- White paper
- Tape
- Markers or crayons
- Family documents and/or photos pertaining to one ancestor

First, you will need to use the knife or scissors to cut a 'window' into the shoe box. (Definitely a job for the adult!). The lid to your box should look something like this when you are done:

Shoe Box Timeline // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

Next, you will need several sheets of ordinary white paper. The number of sheets you will need depends on how many life events your timeline will cover. You may need to trim the height of the paper so that it will easily slip through the sides of the box. Then, tape the paper together so that you have one looooong sheet of paper that you can run through the box.

On the box itself, you will need to either lift the side flaps on the lid (as I did in the photo above), OR remove the side flaps of the lid all together, so that the paper can easily slip through. You will also have to tape the box lid to the main part of the box, otherwise it will fall forward when you set it on its side like this.

The next step will be to choose an ancestor for the timeline. Because it was Memorial Day, I suggested to my son that we use my maternal grandfather who was a WWII veteran. I got out my laptop and showed my son some photos of his great-grandfather. First, we talked about when he was born. For each life event, I wrote down the year in which it occurred, and my son wrote it on the picture he drew for that event. Even just writing the years down can teach kids a lot about the past and the passage of time; my son will be writing '20**' on his school papers and emails and work reports for the rest of his life - I'm pretty sure that, before this, he didn't realize what years really looked like before the year 2000.

My grandfather's birth: I told my son he had six older siblings when he was born, so he drew people to represent them all.

The Shoe Box Timeline // GrowingLittleLeaves.com

The other events he drew pictures for were high school graduation, joining the army, getting married, and having children. After that, he had had enough, which brings me to an important point. The child with whom you are working may get tired of the project before he/she has completed the entire life timeline. That's okay and completely normal! Put it away, come back to it later and finish it when he/she is ready. Also, be sure to use the opportunity to mention important historical events and how they affected your ancestor's life - in this case, we talked about WWII and how so many people got married and had children afterwards.

High School Graduation

Serving in WWII

Here is what the timeline looks like all stretched out. (Click for larger view.) Both of my kids liked pulling it through the shoe box, and you could even pretend like it's a little movie production. When you are done, you can just roll up the paper and store it in the box for later.

So, if you know young children who like to draw, try this activity with them. They may enjoy it more than you know, and you could end up with timelines for several ancestors. (If you do try it, send me a photo! I'd love it see it!)