Involve your kids in celebrating an ancestor’s birthday! After all, who doesn’t want more cake?
This weekend our family will bake a Texas Fudge Cake to mark 100 years from the day my grandmother (my children’s great-grandmother) was born 🙂
Arguably the food may make the occasion special enough. But I could not help myself – I “cooked up” some other activities and ideas to deepen the connections for my kiddos.
If these ideas inspire you to try something new to commemorate an ancestor’s birthday, please share in the comments below!
Make It a Party!
What do you do to celebrate a living person’s birthday? Sing a certain song? Have a special meal? Decorate with balloons and streamers? Break open a piñata?
Whatever it is you normally do to bring the party atmosphere, consider making the same happen for this ancestral birthday celebration!
Recall the Time!
I think it is always fun to explore new and different, and using my imagination to step back into history does that for me.
So when celebrating Great-Grandma’s 100th, what am I inviting my kids to do with me?
That’s right – explore 1922!
I have done my due-diligence in Google-searching and come up with lots of fun facts about the year: what songs and movies were popular, what new inventions came out, world politics and the like. I put together a Word Hunt with a hidden message that I expect my teens and adult siblings may enjoy. I started by using the Puzzlemaker tool on DiscoveryEducation. Then I added a second page with explanations and viola!
I also thought it would be fun to play something like The Price is Right and have my kids guess at what things cost back in 1922. I did not get elaborate with this though. I did some newspaper research and found prices for a few household items listed in the newspaper from the town where Great-Grandma was born. I plan to hand out paper and ask my family to write down their guesses for five…maybe ten items…We’ll see how long their interest holds. Then we’ll of course review the correct answers and give a round of applause to the person who had the least discrepancy overall and the person who hit one right on the nail (if that happens!) You could of course incorporate prizes too!
What I think my kids will get into even more: some active play and media exploration.
Since I love to see the wheels turning in their heads, I’ll ask: “How did kids play in 1922?” and/or “What do you think kids DIDN’T have in 1922?”
Having done my research beforehand, I’ll be ready with some jump ropes, jacks and checkers. I will remind them that Great-Grandma spoke of playing with dolls, swimming and riding a bike. I hope that for at least a few minutes, we can put aside our devices and pretend to play like kids in Great-Grandma’s childhood.
Then we will pick up the devices again and listen to and watch some media produced in 1922! (Hooray for YouTubers who have done the legwork for me and compiled Top 15 Popular Songs of 1922 and Top 10 Movies of 1922! I think watching the movies at 1.5 or 2xspeed may especially elicit some laughs!)
If we were recalling a much earlier time, I might have prepared activities like the following:
- a coloring page of fashions of the time
- a call for real dressing up in period costume
- playing with FamilySearch’s Picture My Heritage
- checking out books from the library that were written in the year or described life in that era
Recall the Person!
Most importantly, we’re celebrating a family member! And this time around, it’s someone we all got to meet and hug in our own lifetimes, so the remembering will likely be pretty spontaneous as we engage in all the rest. I hope to hear myself and my kids say, “Oh yeah, I remember that Great-Grandma….”
What else can we do to remember our birthday person specifically?
- display their photo
- display a family tree with their name highlighted so kids can recall their relationship
- review sources and memories attached to the person on FamilySearch’s FamilyTree
- look up the meaning of their name(s)
- display heirlooms from this person
- display objects that symbolize things that were meaningful to this person – things relating to their birthplace, occupation, religion, culture, etc
Writing all of this, I am realizing that our celebration is now only hours away and I have something else I’d like to dig out from my closet…
I’ve got a party to put on!
connectthedotsgenealogy.com 
Kirsti, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone might have already told you this, but…your ideas, thoughtfulness, and even your looks are reminiscent of Mom (Ora Mae). I mean it! She was a great lady, an *elect* lady, and we all are blessed to have know her. Thanks for your blog ideas! I think they’re exceptional! Keep up the good work! Uncle Tom
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