The reason I got into family history was to help my own children understand where they came from. I wanted to create approchable ways to connect with their heritage and ancestry. Since I work with the children in our church congregation, I jumped at the chance to help plan an activity related to family history.
Since our age group ranges in age from 3 to 11, we needed an activity that everyone could easily do and be interested in. When another leader brought up “ties that bind” I immediately thought of friendship bracelets. The bracelets that I’m sure these children have seen are those popularized by “Swifties” made with letter and color beads, each with a unique message. What’s more unique than a bracelet featuring the name of your ancestor?
The bracelet is a fun connection, but it’s meaningless if they don’t know anything about the person whose name they’re wearing. Prior to the activity, I sent each child home with a worksheet to fill out with a family member about their chosen ancestor. I firmly believe that we retain information better when we teach it to others, so they brought this paper with them to the activity and we had a little family history “show and tell.”
Click the image below to download the worksheet as a pdf.
Once everyone was able to share a little snippet of their ancestor, we solidified their connection with the handmade bracelets. Thankfully we had a lot of adults in attendance to help the smaller children with assembling their new jewelry using clear stretch cord, alphabet beads, and pony beads.
Because we had around 15 children involved, we didn’t want to spend a lot of time having each child choose all their own beads. I pre-packaged pony beads by color so the children could grab a bag in their color of choice. It also included two beads with hearts on them and a section of pre-cut thin elastic cord.
While the children were telling about their ancestor, I pulled the alphabet beads for each relative’s name how I hoped it was spelled and set each aside. When the child came to the table to choose their bead bag, I asked how their ancestor’s name was spelled and edited my bead choice accordingly. They then created their friendship bracelet with their relative’s name.
The trickiest part of the entire process? Tying the bracelets! Elastic stretch cord is super slick and knots don’t like to stay tied. Here’s what we learned:
Start with a far longer length of cord than you think you need. The more you have to work with, the less likely you are to lose your grip on the cord. We had to re-string A LOT of bracelets.
Pre-stretch your cord before stringing the beads. It helps prevent the grip loss.
Don’t use a typical square knot. Because the cord has no grip, it just slides apart. Instead, line up the two ends and, using both strands, tie an overhand knot. (For a visual tutorial of an overhand knot with just one strand, visit Animated Knots.)
If you decide to do this activity on a smaller scale, get creative with your beads and design. Use varied sizes and colors to customize this visual connection to your ancestor.
