Do you have a child who loves to draw? My six year old son LOVES to draw, so I knew that he would be up for this activity as soon as I mentioned drawing. Asking your child to sketch a photo is a very simple, no-cost way of getting kids to look closer at old family photos. All you need for this activity are family photos, paper, and any sort of drawing utensils (pencils, crayons, markers).
Let your child choose which photo he/she wants to sketch. We sat down at my laptop and looked through a bunch of photos. To my surprise, my son said that he wanted a photo with "only a person." He chose an old black-and-white portrait of his Italian great-great-great-grandmother, Cristina Licciardi.
I asked him if he wanted to use crayons, markers, or colored pencils and he chose markers. He wanted to draw his sketch in color, and he mentioned to me how he would have to imagine what the colors would be, since the photo was all black and white. That's right, dude, and I told him that, when this photo was taken, color photography technology did not exist.
Let your child choose which photo he/she wants to sketch. We sat down at my laptop and looked through a bunch of photos. To my surprise, my son said that he wanted a photo with "only a person." He chose an old black-and-white portrait of his Italian great-great-great-grandmother, Cristina Licciardi.
I asked him if he wanted to use crayons, markers, or colored pencils and he chose markers. He wanted to draw his sketch in color, and he mentioned to me how he would have to imagine what the colors would be, since the photo was all black and white. That's right, dude, and I told him that, when this photo was taken, color photography technology did not exist.
Working on his family photo sketch.
As he was drawing, I was amazed at how closely he looked at the photo's details - the hair, the clothing, the jewelry. We had looked through old family photos before, but he was never really willing to stop and look at stuff like that. He becomes quite focused when drawing, and this particular sketch became a challenge to him. He was not used to drawing women with a hairstyle like this, or with a such a high shirt collar. He told me that he felt he 'messed up' on a couple of parts - he can be quite the perfectionist - but I think he did a fine job. And it gave us a chance to talk about how this woman was related to him and where she was from, not to mentioned our discussions about photography and clothing and hairstyles of the past.
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Again, let your child(ren)'s interests drive HOW you teach them about their families and their ancestry. Design activities around their interests and you can't go wrong. On this day, we may have only talked about one ancestor, but quality is always better than quantity.
As always, feel free to send in photo sketches that your kids have done. I'd love to see them!
©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder.
As always, feel free to send in photo sketches that your kids have done. I'd love to see them!
©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder.
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