Activity: A Letter Home

Family Tree - A Letter Home - Meet the Roeddes - Memoir Bag - Learning to Marble - Family Time

FAMILY FUN ACTIVITY
A Letter from Home
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Materials Needed:

Paper

Pen

Address, envelope and stamp

Activity description:

In this activity, you, your friends and family or class can brainstorm questions you would like to ask your grandparent/older friend about their childhood and school days.

Then write a friendly letter, choosing appropriate questions from the brainstorming list. (*Make sure that the letters get written and mailed as soon as possible).

When you receive a letter in return, add the letter to your family scrapbook and compare your life to that of your grandparents. Here are some examples of questions other kids have come up with:

How did you get to school and how far did you have to travel?. . . . . . .Where did you live? How big was the city or town? How many schools did it have?. . . . . . .What kind of games did you play?. . . . . . . What did you do on holidays? Did you go camping or travelling?. . . . . . .What toys did you play with? Did you have a lot of toys?. . . . . . .Did you get an allowance?. . . . . . .What jobs and chores did you have?. . . . . . .Did you have a Library?. . . . . . .What was your favorite book?. . . . . . .Where did you play?. . . . . . .Who was your best friend?. . . . . . .What were your teachers like?. . . . . . .Did you have class rules?. . . . . . . .Were your teachers and parents very strict?. . . . . . .

You may wish as a class to extend your research by visiting an internet site entitled Personal Thoughts, Personal Treasures, which documents the stories senior citizens tell about their memories and most treasured objects. Click here for a list of interview questions that were used when gathering stories for that web site.

RESULTS OF FAMILY LETTERS

Materials Needed:

Roedde Envelope Reply letter from person interviewed in the "Letter Home" Activity

Materials to write up report

Activity Description:

1) If you haven't received a reply letter from the person you wrote to in the Letter Home Activity, try phoning the person to see if they will respond

2) If you still haven't received a reply, try interviewing another family member orally, rather than by letter.

3) Compare the information obtained in the letter with activities in your own life.

4) Present the results in your family scrapbook

5) You and your class might wish to show these letters to your parents in a class open house where all the family trees and personal histories could be viewed. A showing of the Roedde House video would also inform parents about some of the Vancouver history you have learned about.

Click here for a full lesson plan of this activity