October is Family History Month here in the U.S, and as the weather turns cooler, it's a great time to do some family-related crafts indoors. As people celebrate the harvest, autumn, and Halloween, October is also the month of the pumpkin!
Pumpkins, of course, grow on vines, but it's a little more complex than that. A main vine sprouts from the ground, and then other secondary vines grow outward from, but still connected to, the main vine. And actually, if left unpruned, tertiary vines can grow outward from the secondary vines. As the plant grows, you may get many unique pumpkins growing along many separate and different-sized vines, yet all of the individual pumpkins are somehow connected to the main vine. If that doesn't sound like a family, I don't know what does! So, I thought that in honor of pumpkin season, we could put the family tree analogy on a temporary hiatus and create a family pumpkin vine instead.
I recently encountered this post over on Pretty Prudent about making pumpkin stamps out of toilet paper rolls. Take an empty toilet paper roll, fold a little crease into one side, and tape the top so that the crease stays in place. (I used a similar technique in our Mother's Day Garden of Hearts that we made back in May.) I did this with three separate tubes, because I had purchased three different shades of acrylic orange paint. Pumpkins are oftentimes very different shades of orange and I thought it would give the final product a little more dimension. Plus, these little bottles of paint were only $0.50 at Wal-Mart.
Pumpkins, of course, grow on vines, but it's a little more complex than that. A main vine sprouts from the ground, and then other secondary vines grow outward from, but still connected to, the main vine. And actually, if left unpruned, tertiary vines can grow outward from the secondary vines. As the plant grows, you may get many unique pumpkins growing along many separate and different-sized vines, yet all of the individual pumpkins are somehow connected to the main vine. If that doesn't sound like a family, I don't know what does! So, I thought that in honor of pumpkin season, we could put the family tree analogy on a temporary hiatus and create a family pumpkin vine instead.
I recently encountered this post over on Pretty Prudent about making pumpkin stamps out of toilet paper rolls. Take an empty toilet paper roll, fold a little crease into one side, and tape the top so that the crease stays in place. (I used a similar technique in our Mother's Day Garden of Hearts that we made back in May.) I did this with three separate tubes, because I had purchased three different shades of acrylic orange paint. Pumpkins are oftentimes very different shades of orange and I thought it would give the final product a little more dimension. Plus, these little bottles of paint were only $0.50 at Wal-Mart.
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I tore a sheet of paper out of an oversized sketch pad and squirted a little bit of each color paint onto a disposable plate. Then, my daughter got to work stamping pumpkins all over the paper. I didn't tell her how many to stamp or when to stop, but if you have a specific number of people in your family you would like to represent, you can help the child count out the right amount of pumpkins.
After the paint dried, we got out a green marker to draw the vines.
When she was done drawing the vines, I asked her who in our family each pumpkin would represent. She included her immediate family members, grandparents, a few aunts and uncles, a cousin, and even a grand aunt and grand uncle. I wrote down each family member's name, but if you have an older child, you can ask them to write the names - it's good practice. Here is my daughter's finished pumpkin patch!
As I have mentioned before, getting even the youngest children interested in and educated in family history begins with them realizing just who is in their family and how they are related to those people. Repeatedly talking about and identifying family members will help children better piece together the 'family puzzle.' When you also make it fun, as they grow, they will associate exploring family relationships as a positive and interesting experience.
©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder
©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder
