Genealogy Classroom Ideas Stanley A Lucero Madera, CA www.lucerito.net

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Goals • • • • • Each of us needs to know about our ancestors.

What are their names? Where were they born? What can we learn about their language, culture, and history? What countries do the ancestors of the students represent?

Send a letter to your parents We are going to start a family unit for the next four weeks. Your children will be asking you for the names of your parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. They will also be asking you where each person was born. They will not ask you for specific dates – approximate year only and only for those family members who have passed away. Please don’t send private information about living persons.

We will complete a variety of family (genealogy) forms, doing family trees, making up family books, doing collages of family pictures, maps of where our family members were born, and many more activities where the students can be creative..

Please help your children to make this a positive, learning experience where they can learn about themselves and their family. The goal of this unit is for the students to become more aware of who they are, where they come from and to develop a positive, self esteem.

Please come to the classroom and share interesting family stories with the students in our room. Come and help us at one of the classroom centers where you can help all of the students with one of their assignments. We need classroom volunteers!

If there is information about your family that needs to remain private, remind your children not to share that information at school.

Sincerely yours, Mr. Lucero

A Fan Chart of my ancestors

Use pictures of your ancestors Maria Dolores Quintana Great great grandmother 1846 to after 1920 Maria Rumalda Quintana Great grandmother 1889 to 1946

Yolanda’s ancestors

Use Family Group Sheets

Use a Pedigree Chart

Interviews • • • • • • • Talk to your oldest living relatives Be respectful Use their native language Ask permission to use a tape recorder Ask permission to take pictures of their pictures Listen Say Thank You

Prepare some questions • • • • • Please tell me about where you were born.

Please tell me how you met your spouse.

Please tell me some stories about your children.

Please tell me about your aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Please tell me some stories about your parents and grand parents.

Visit cemeteries

Close up of Alvarez tombstone

My Grandparents Buried side by side facing La Jicarita in Llano de San Juan Nepomusino New Mexico 8500 feet above sea level

Find art activities • • • • Family Tree using construction paper Picture collage Use webs for extended families Make a memory box [shoebox]

Draw a family tree

Draw a family flower

Family pictures

Locate some genealogy books

Find Certificates

For classroom activities

EnchantedLearning.com

Family Theme Page Information, Quizzes, and Printouts to Color

For more indepth genealogy • • • • • • • Use Personal Ancestral File software to organize your information Find other genealogy software Organize information by families Use www.familysearch.org

Use www.ancestry.com

[fee based] Go to local Genealogy Library Room Write letters [emails] to relatives to gather and exchange information