Connect!
Growing Little Leaves: Genealogy for Children
  • Home
  • About
  • Mission
  • Activities
  • Printables
    • Ancestor Worksheets
  • Books
    • Grandparents and Memory Journals
    • Immigration
    • Africa
    • Black America
    • Canada
    • East and Southeast Asia
    • India and Bangladesh
    • Latin America
    • Native America
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog

Ghosts of Our Ancestors

10/29/2014

0 Comments

 
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that we like to create seasonal and holiday crafts and activities. My kids just love everything about the Halloween season, so I decided to combine a little family history with a simple ghost-making craft. 

It's difficult to talk with young children about family ancestors who 1.) they have never met and 2.) are deceased. You can try to sit down with them and just look at an old family photo album, but, trust me, that doesn't hold their attention for very long and it's not really all that fun. So, I thought that a much better approach would be to combine a fun Halloween craft with family photos. 

I decided to use a ghost theme, because, when my kids have asked what a ghost is, I have told them that it is a spirit of a person who has passed away. When people die, their bodies stop working, but their spirits live on. It might be an overly-simplified explanation, but it's not scary, and actually helpful in this case when I want to use the idea of ghosts to talk about ancestors. (See this post about how I've used Disney's Mulan to talk with my kids about ancestors.)

Here is a list of the supplies I used for this activity:

- Black construction paper, poster board, or cardstock
- White paint and disposable plate
- Ghost-shaped cookie cutter or stamp
- Digital files of old family photos and a computer printer
- Scissors 
- Glue

There is a little bit of adult prep work required for this project. Before I even told my daughter we were going to do a craft, I printed out photo head shots of some of our ancestors. Make sure the images are small enough to fit inside the ghost shape you will be making with the cookie cutter or stamp. Then, I squirted out some white paint onto a disposable plate and spread it around enough that the area was large enough to fit the cookie cutter.

Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
The next step is to let your child make ghost stamps all over the black poster board or paper. If you are not using "washable" paint, you might want to put a tablecloth or drop cloth under the poster board to keep messes contained better. I also helped by holding the poster board in place when she was stamping to avoid smears.
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
When you are done stamping, you must wait for the paint to dry. To pass the time, I let my four-year-old help me cut out the individual family ancestor photos that I had printed out earlier. (Learning how to use scissors is a major skill that she practices in her preschool class.) I still had to trim the images better after she was done, but it was good practice for her! If your child is not old enough to use scissors, make sure an adult or older child completes this task.
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
When the paint was dry, I gave my daughter a glue stick and told her she could put one photo in every ghost. As she was choosing photos and gluing, I told her the name of each person and how she was related to them in terms she could understand. For example, instead of saying, "This was your great-great-grandmother," I said, "This was Grandma K.'s grandma."
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
We did not glue the photos down in any particular order, and we mixed photos from both my and my husband's sides of the family. With an older child, it would be possible to arrange the ghosts and photos in more of a traditional family pedigree format, provided that you have a photo for each person in that family line. You could also use a paint pen to write each ancestor's name below his or her ghost.

In the end, my daughter was very proud of her final poster and she wanted to hang it in the basement. Can't argue with that!
Ghosts of Our Ancestors // GrowingLittleLeaves.com
If you decide to try to recreate this activity with any of the children in your life, send me a photo! I'd love to see your creations!

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder
Print Friendly and PDF
Add to Flipboard Magazine.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Emily Kowalski Schroeder

    Founder and Author of Growing Little Leaves

    Emily Kowalski Schroeder / Founder and Author of GrowingLittleLeaves.com

    Categories

    All
    Ancestors
    Ancestor Worksheets
    Archiving
    Books
    Cemeteries
    Charts
    Colors
    Conferences
    Drawing
    Editorials
    Fashion
    Games
    Hands On
    Heirlooms
    Holidays
    Immigration
    Interviewing
    Maps
    Math
    Movies
    Newspapers
    Occupations
    Photos
    Programming
    Roleplay
    Science
    Storytelling
    Surnames
    Technology
    Timelines
    Tracing
    Vocabulary
    Writing

    Search Military Records - Fold3

Home

About

Mission & Philosophy

Activities

Printables

Resources

Contact