Kids Love To Learn About History and Family

This weekend my little girl came home from visiting with her aunt out of town. She had a good time and got to meet some family that she didn't know about. We always tend to find family that we didn't know about. Don't ask me how we do it. I would hate to see what would happen if we ever won the lottery.

She joined me in the den and explained that she had a take home project to work on with us. Us being her parents. She pulled out a big piece of yellow bristol board and explained that she had to draw a family tree.

I figured this would be fun since she loves all kinds of art work and we were going to get messy with this one doing it with paints. She loves to paint and mix colors. She has gotten really good lately at drawing all kinds of trees and flowers. She is great with mixing together combinations of the two and getting all types of different colors involved.

We decided that we would paint a big old giant oak tree down the middle and have all kinds of leaves that we would glue on to represent different members of the family. The leaves thing was her idea and if I do say so myself, a genius one at that.

The exercise is a great idea. I remember that I did it as a kid and I learned a great deal about my family when I did it. I found out about a great uncle that I had who used to tour around the country performing in a band. I learned about a great great grand mother who used to run around her village delivering food to people who were too old or too sick to do it for themselves. I learned how an uncle and aunt of mine had to travel fifteen miles out of town to meet secretly because neither of their families approved of them getting together. They were a classic Romeo and Juliet scenario.

Now my daughter was going to get to hear a bunch of these stories and it turns out she is hungry for more. She has developed a whole new interest in family members she never knew she had and is excited about meeting new people. She has expressed and interest in doing different things as well as what she wants to do when she grows up. She has mentioned for the first time now that she wants to be a singer. Anything is possible I suppose, but I think she likes animals even more and will probably become a vet or an actress or a judge. There is still lots of room for possibilities.

Needless to say the exercise was a great success and even if your kids don't have this assignment given to them, I would highly recommend giving it a shot as a fun thing to do the next time you have some quality time together.