Bring an Ancestor to Activity Days!

This week we are going to talk about family history.  I thought it would be fun to have the girls think about it in advance so I made this invitation.  The font is kind of hard to read, but basically they are going to "bring along an ancestor" by learning a story about, or dressing up as, or bringing an item that belonged to an ancestor of theirs.  I thought I would start with a 5 minute lesson on why we do family history work and why it is so important.  Then we will be taking turns introducing our ancestors to each other.  This will probably take most of the meeting, because we have 15 girls!  Then we will begin to fill out our pedigree charts.  I found this one at sugardoodle

I thought this one would be a good starter.  It's not the official church one, but we have some girls who don't know all their family info, have stepparents, etc.  So it is just a start for them.

To encourage them to finish this up, I am going to send them home with one of these:

A Family Histo-tree!

I found this at chasingmolly.com!  So cute!  The idea is you put treats in the bag, and then the leaves have some kind of family history assignment on each of them.  As they complete each assignment, they can get a treat out of the bag.  I am going to use Hearts instead of leaves, to emphasize the "turn the hearts of the children" aspect.  I will put the following assignments:

Finish your pedigree chart

Interview an ancestor (parent, grandparent)

Gather some family pictures of each side of your family

Write down a fun childhood story in your journal

Put everything in a box or folder so you can continue to work on your projects.

  

I actually made the pdf available here

I will try to post a picture of my tree when I finish it.  Still in progress!  :)   For our treat I thought it would be fun to have something to do with family history, but the only thing that came up when I googled was johnnycakes.  Seriously?  Did the people back then even want to eat them?  I am going to make a round sugar cookie and decorate it with a family tree (brown outline of branches with heart sprinkles).  I figure sugar cookie recipes get handed down right?  More pix to come!

Here is my family histo-tree!  The instructions are really simple:
Take a lunch bag and cut the top into 5 sections lengthwise, until you reach about the bottom 1/3.  Open the bag up and place candy inside.  Then take each of five sections and twist, like rope, to make the branches.  Tie around the base of branches with ribbon and then glue on leaves/hearts.

Here are the family tree sugar cookies I made.  I am not a cookie artist.  But I thought they turned out cute.

Cemetary Scavengar Hunt

Today we had a lesson about family history and keeping journals. To prepare, my partner and I went to the cemetery (which happens to be about 1/2 mile from my house) and got ideas to use for the hunt. Here is what we prepared. If you decide to do this, be sure to go to your own cemetery and adapt this page to suit the cemetery you will be using.

We met at my house (you may want to have your girls dropped off and picked up at the cemetery) and after doing the prayer and spotlight talked about family history. We discussed how sometimes you need information that can't be found in a book or on the Internet, so you have to travel to different cemeteries in search of dates and names. We also talked about why cemeteries are NOT scary and how we should act. We then headed off. We had a mom help us drive and she was even kind even to stay and help out.

Once we got there we numbered the girls into five groups of three and handed them their paper and pens. There was no rush since it was not a race, they didn't have to go in order and not every clue had to be completed. I was really impressed how well behaved and respectful the girls were. It was also nice to see some of the older girls reach out to the younger or slower ones.

They got about 25-30 minutes to finish up and then we sat them all down, gave them a treat and talked about how there are times when we are doing family history when we know what we are looking for but we just don't know where to find it.

We tied journaling in by asking the girls how we can keep track of important information, like names and birth dates. I told a personal story about when I was in college at BYU Nauvoo and how my roommate made it a point to write in her journal everyday. She would write about something we did that day, somewhere we went, a neat experience, anything. Sometimes it was extravagant and sometimes it was simple. The point is, she wrote. I didn't write and now I have lost all of the memories that I could have had. Even though it can be hard, if we will just write one thing that happened that day, something good that happened, a blessing we got, something we are thankful for...anything... we will be thankful years down the road.

At the end we gave each girl their own journal. We picked up composition books at Wal-Mart for 35 cents, since all back to school stuff is on clearance, and modge podged some scrapbook paper we all ready had on hand on the front and back. We also added their name to the front cover. We didn't do anything fancy with it like ribbon or anything, since we have so many girls, but they were sure excited! Here's one if you need to have a visual.

Mini Notebooks

When I came across this idea tonight I just knew I had to share it! This would make a great journal for a Family Histories activity.

What's in a name?

For our activity today we asked each of the girls to come prepared with the story behind their name. We had them question their parents about why the were given that particular name. At the activity we went around the circle and each girl told their story. Some of them were simple, like "my mom just liked it" and others were more sentimental.

Then we talked about last names. We talked about honoring those that came before you by respecting your last name and living up to it and living by the examples of our ancestors who share our last names. I told a personal story about my great-grandfather and a letter he had written to the family shortly before his death were he talked about this very thing and asked "what will you do with our name?"

We then gave each of the girls a handout with their last name that we had researched the meaning for. We talked about how some names have a simple meaning and others have a deep meaning, but that it was honoring our name that really counts.

Here are a few sites that were helpful in finding the meanings. Of course some names were more difficult to find than others, but with enough research we found every name!

Search for Ancestors
Last Name Meanings (Use the alphabet at the top)
Surname Database (Use the search box on the right)
Winslow Tree

Family History

Thanks to Deb for submitting this idea!

Since the theme this year focuses on Eternal Families, I felt inspired to have a "family history unit".

We started by introducing Family History, and proxy work to the girls. The co-leader used the lesson in the Joseph Smith manual from a few weeks ago, and we talked about different ways of being sealed to our parents, i.e. born in covenant, sealed to your parents on earth, doing the work for others.

I purchased two large size piece puzzles (70 pieces-10x13 inches) and put the puzzles together then flipped them over so the back was up. I wrote out a family group sheet on one (I used my family, and on the other I drew out a family tree. I took the puzzles apart and put them back into the box. When it was time for the activity, I asked a leader (the Primary President) to hide some of the pieces from each puzzle around the room. Some were EXTREMELY obvious, one was deviously hard and the remaining puzzle pieces were jumbled together on the table.

We opened with a prayer and I asked one girl to braid her hair without bending her elbows. When she had difficulty, I asked her if there was anything she needed and she asked for help. One of the girls volunteered. We likened that to doing proxy work. We talked about how we needed to know who our relatives are so that we can make sure their work has been done.

Then I showed the girls a set of blank forms and explained to them that they would start with themselves and fill in the information for, and then they could ask questions about their parents and possibly grandparents. When they asked what about if they didn't know someone and we explained how we could ask others for information as well as use the internet (Family Search, Ancestry.com, the libraries, etc.) and showed them copies of some of the documents I had for my family.

I reviewed with them some of the information found in the forms and went over how no one document is going to have all of the answers but that that's when we have to put together the puzzle pieces and make sure they fit. We then started putting together the puzzles. They realized that some of the pieces were missing and I pointed out that sometimes you have to search very diligently. They started finding the pieces; some were hidden within the papers I'd brought in, some were scattered on the floor, some on the piano, the rostrum, chalk rails, heaters, window ledges, etc. The one really "devious" piece was hidden out of sight.

The girls assembled the puzzle by interviewing me (they asked me who had this last name or this birthdate). As the puzzles were near completion, they realized that they were still missing pieces. It finally became apparent they needed help from elsewhere, we likened this to prayer and being in tune with the holy ghost). The girls kept asking where could the piece be. The Primary President revealed the location in a still small voice.

This activity worked out EXTREMELY WELL.

Calendars

Have the girls make a family calendar of all the birthdays and wedding anniversaries for everyone in the family. They could make copies and share them with their relatives.

Where in the world?

Using a map of the world or your country, have the girls place stickers on cities or areas in which their ancestors lived.

What's in a name?

Have the girls come prepared with what their name means and why their parent's gave them their name. You could also talk about last names. Talk about the importance of being true to your name and honoring your ancestors by living right.

What about nicknames? Ask how they got their nicknames and get the story behind it. Have the girls document their own naming stories in their journals.

Family History

If you live in an area with museums or old houses take the girls to visit at least one. Give them a list of things they need to be looking for in order to keep them interested.

Hanging Bed Organizer

This may be too difficult for AD age girls, but if planned just right it might work. It might work great for Young Women's as well. It's a great place to store a journal and/or scriptures.

Paperbag Cookbooks

Oh, how I wish I had a picture from this activity! We helped the girls made paper bag scrapbooks and it was a blast! But, instead of making them into scrapbooks we made them into cookbooks. We gathered a few fun recipes like Chocolate Chip Cookies, Wendy's Frosty's and more then printed them out small enough to fit on one half of the bag. We gathered up our scrapbook stuff and let the girls decorate the front cover. HERE are some directions on how to make the books. We also made cookies together and the girls each got to take a few home.



The great thing about these books is they can be as fancy or plain as you want, as well as they can work for anything! Not just cookbooks! Try making them using the Young Women's values or with girls camp photos. Anything goes!

Journal Jars

We used these jars from Ikea to start with but any jar would do, really. We also made a gigantic list of questions, like the ones here for example. We let the girls be in charge of cutting the questions into strips and then they folded them into quarters and stuffed them in the jar. To top it off, we gave them pieces of ribbon cut into 4 in. or so lengths and then they tied them to the top. With the right ribbon it can turn out so cute!

This wasn't an acutal journal jar, but it's where I got the idea. Ours looked just like this.

Gratitude Journals

During the month of November we made each of the girls their own Gratitude Journal. We also wrote a short note to each of them on the front page expressing our gratitude to them for all that they do and for who they are.

We then talked about things and people that we are thankful for. Each girl chose one person that they were thankful for and wrote them a letter. Suprisingly, some of the girls even wrote us letters!

Family History Lesson

For this activity we had each of the girls come prepared with a story or fact about an ancestor. We went around the room and each girl shared what they had. Some of the girls got really into it and even came with pictures.

After we all shared our stories we talked about being linked eternally. We made a paper chain and compared it to our families. We explained that each person was a link in the chain and that by being sealed together we were linked eterally. We talked about how it is up to us to do our part to keep our famly linked eternally and to make sure that each member of our family, past and present is sealed together. We showed them how strong the chain was when we were all linked and then what it looked like when one link was broken or missing.