We're so excited to show off some more details about our new books. Today we
are going to focus on the "My Mormon Ancestor" Activity Book.
First I have to give another big thank you to my sister Amy Slade for her help with this book. Also, many more great thanks to
Erin Roudabush, Michelle Phillips and Christine Fazulyanov for their
assistance in making this book happen.
With the “My Mormon Ancestor Activity Book” you
can:
· Plan an Ancestor Family Home Evening
· Learn about Priesthood Line of Authority and how to trace it
· Find the Patriarchal Blessings of your ancestors
· Complete a temple dot-to-dot
· Document the church service and callings of your ancestors
· Gather information on your family’s missionaries
· Record information about the first LDS members of your family
· Make a handkerchief doll for church
Look at some of these pages:
These books make wonderful gifts for the holidays. Take advantage
of the pre-release sale, 20% off all books at zapthegrandmagap.com,till November 30, 2014 and they will arrive in time for Christmas. Other great online and print resources to help
families connect to each other by connecting to their past can be found at zapthegrandmagap.com.
We're so excited to show off some details about our new books. Today we
are going to focus on the "My Pioneer Ancestor" Activity Book.
First
I have to give a big thank you to my sister Amy Slade (who just had a
baby!) for her help with this book. Also great thanks to Erin
Roudabush, Michelle Phillips and Christine Fazulyanov for their
assistance in making this book happen.
With the “My Pioneer Ancestor Activity Book” you
can:
·Map out the pioneer route of your ancestors
· Decide what you would pack for a journey across the plains
· Learn how to find direction by the sun
· Compare your day to the day in the life of your ancestor
· Try classic pioneer recipes
· Write a Pony Express letter to a pioneer ancestor
· Play a game about the risks along the trail
· Contrast pioneer schools and modern schools
Look at some of these pages:
This book will arrive in time for Christmas gift giving if you order now. Take advantage
of the pre-release sale, 20% off all books at zapthegrandmagap.com, until November 30, 2014. Excerpts from all of the
books can be viewed on the website at zapthegrandmagap.com/brandnewbooks.
Other great online and print resources can be found at zapthegrandmagap.com
to help
families connect to each other by connecting to their past.
This post crossposted to thechartchick.blogspot.com. I don't usually crosspost, but we are so excited about these new books!
We're so excited to show off some details about our new books. Today
we are going to focus on the "My Jewish Ancestor" Activity Book.
First I have to give a big thank you to Schelly Talalay Dardashti,Daniel Horowitz, and Tammy Hepps
for their feedback. All three were so generous with their time and
help and the book is much better because of their contributions. I am
indebted and in awe of their genealogy expertise.
With the “My Jewish Ancestor Activity Book” you
can:
· Learn about Jewish history, traditions and culture
· Make and braid Challah bread with your family
· Solve a Jewish calendar crossword puzzle
· Record your family’s recipe for Charoset
· Find your family’s place in the Diaspora
· Learn the Hebrew alphabet
· Complete a genealogy word search
· Enjoy a Yiddish folktale and Nasrudin stories
· Color, cut out and tell stories with Jewish ancestor paper dolls
· Explore many other activities about your family’s history
Look at some of these pages:
This book will arrive in time for Chanukah gift giving if you order now. Take advantage
of the pre-release sale, 20% off all books at zapthegrandmagap.com, until November 30, 2014. Excerpts from all of the
books can be viewed on the website at zapthegrandmagap.com/brandnewbooks.
Other great online and print resources can be found at zapthegrandmagap.com
to help
families connect to each other by connecting to their past.
Just
in time for the holiday season, I've got some new Zap the Grandma Gap
Activity Books coming your way! I am so excited to announce three new
books for you to share and give to the children in your lives. I have
created workbooks for the following heritages:
With the “My Jewish Ancestor Activity Book” you can:
· Learn about Jewish history, traditions and culture
· Make and braid Challah bread with your family
· Solve a Jewish calendar crossword puzzle
· Record your family’s recipe for Charosets
· Find your family’s place in the Diaspora
· Learn the Hebrew Alphabet
· Complete a genealogy word search
· Enjoy a Yiddish folktale and a Nasrudin stories
· Color, cut out and tell stories with Jewish Ancestor paper dolls
With the “My Mormon Ancestor Activity Book” you can:
· Plan an Ancestor Family Home Evening
· Learn about Priesthood Line of Authority and how to trace it
· Find the Patriarchal Blessings of your ancestors
· Complete a temple dot-to-dot
· Document the church service and callings of your ancestors
· Gather information on your family’s missionaries
· Record information about the first LDS members of your family
· Make a handkerchief doll for church
With the “My Pioneer Ancestor Activity Book” you can:
· Map out the pioneer route of your ancestors
· Decide what you would pack for a journey across the plains
· Learn how to find direction by the sun
· Compare your day to the day in the life of your ancestor
· Try classic pioneer recipes
· Write a Pony Express letter to a pioneer ancestor
· Play a game about the risks along the trail
· Contrast pioneer schools and modern schools
These workbooks books offer a variety of fun and engaging
activities to introduce your children and grandchildren to different
aspects of their personal heritage. We've included activities like
mazes, recipes, dot-to-dot, and our always popular paper dolls. Science
has shown us how valuable it is for our children to have a sense of
self (academically and emotionally) and these books are a fantastic to
way to introduce your children to family history in an easy,
interactive, and fun way.
As a bonus for you, we are having a pre-order sale.
This
sale includes all of my previous Zap the Grandma Gap books and
workbooks, as well. The books will be shipping in December--perfect for
gift giving. These books make wonderful gifts for children and
adults. Order by the deadline to take advantage of this fantastic sale.
Watch the blog next week for in-depth previews of each new workbook. And take a look at my previous books here. I'd love to help you bring some genealogy into the lives of your young ones this holiday season.
It's that time of year. The chill has finally settled in my part of the country and I think it might actually stay this time. The vibrant colors of the foliage on the mountains and in the valley has been replaced with a dusting of snow and a crunching of crackly leaves under my feet. Frost settles each morning over the landscape and my heart warms up just a hitch. Not because of the cold but because of the season. November has arrived, and with it, a resolve to not get lost in the glitzy and gaudy displays of commercial Christmas that has already invaded every inch of every store I walk into these past few days. I love Christmas, don't get me wrong. But I can't help but feel we're doing ourselves a great disservice if we rush right into it without pausing to embrace Thanksgiving first. And so, I am making it a sticking point around here for the next few weeks to really focus on thinking and talking about Thanksgiving. And the first point I'd like to discuss has to do with traditions.
What are your traditions when this time of year comes? We all have some, even if we don't realize they are traditions. Sometimes we just think, "Well, that's just what you do this time of year." But have you paused to ask your family what "traditions" they remember from growing up, or that they look forward to each year, when it comes to Thanksgiving? It's easy to pin point Christmas or Hanukkah traditions, but what (besides turkey and football) do you and your family do for Thanksgiving?
In doing some preparation for one of my upcoming Rootstech presentations, I have been doing a lot of reading about the science behind family history and family narratives. There is a great deal of power behind both. One of the sources I am studying is The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler. It's a really fascinating read but one section really caught my eye recently as I reread a section and it talked about the author's experience with Emory Psychology professor, Marshall Duke. The author had a chance to gather with Duke's family for a Shabbat dinner, one Friday evening, to discuss the power of family narratives. Duke discussed the work that he and colleague Robyn Fivush have spent a great portion of their careers in studying children's resilience. They have pioneered the field and determined that those children, and later adults, who are the most balanced and resilient in their lives are those who have a strong "intergenerational self." In other words, they know they belong to something bigger than themselves (their families). They know this because of involvement in family narratives and personal family history. Narratives are huge and it turns out that Grandma's are key in the passing on of narratives. Go figure, right?
Back to the Shabbat dinner Feiler spent with Duke's family, though. Dinner time is key in the Duke home to the sharing of narratives but Duke insisted that traditions and narratives can be shared any time, not just at dinner. But seeing as how it was a meal time, Feiler decided to ask Duke's children about their favorite traditions and narratives. The Thanksgiving tradition stuck out the most to Feiler --it's hilarious! It appears, in the Duke family, that Thanksgiving is a four day extravaganza of obscure and downright odd traditions. It all kicks off the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when the family eats turkey sandwiches for dinner. Then on Wednesday, they all eat spaghetti for dinner and paint mustaches on each other. On Thursday they hide cans of pumpkin sauce, bags of green beans, and a frozen Turkey so the family can all "hunt" for their food like the Pilgrims. Finally on Friday, they eat their Thanksgiving meal as a family. And if all of that isn't quirky enough, the family has color coded teams and they compete all weekend long for points. The winning team claims a plastic duck. The Dukes have been doing this for over thirty years and no one really had a specific reason for why any of those traditions started or carried through. They just did it that way one time and it all stuck. And not just the traditions, as odd as they may seem to some (okay, me), but the memories attached to them. The traditions just "become part of your family," Duke said. And it's what the Duke children loved telling Feiler about. It's what made their family theirs.
And so it is. Something silly or obscure happens and it's what sticks. And before you know it, you don't know why or how, but it is your family's and this time of year just wouldn't be the same without it. We've all got something right? Specific recipes that have to be on the Thanksgiving table. Watching the parade in the morning. Special china and crystal used for the meal. In my family it is open faced turkey sandwiches with cheese melted all over them the day after. Sharing our thoughts of gratitude while gathered around the table or a prayer of thanksgiving while we hold hands. Or painting on mustaches and competing for a plastic duck. Each family has something unique that makes their Thanksgiving only theirs. What can you pin down as something you do each year that makes Thanksgiving yours? And how do your children and grandchildren play into that? Do they even know that it is a tradition for your family? If not, can you find a way this year to instill in them that what you do as a family, you do for a reason? Can this be the year that you make a point of being the bridge from your family's past to your family's future by sharing, teaching, and encouraging the continuation of traditions?
It's easier than we think because it all starts with a conversation. A few questions like "Do you know why I make the cranberry sauce from scratch each year?" or "Do you know why we use the china each year for our Thanksgiving meal?" You may be surprised to know that your children and grandchildren already know. But you may also find an amazing opportunity to share a story or experience that will have lasting impact. The more our children and grandchildren know about their family and their history, the stronger they will be and the more likely they will be to pass along the narrative. If you show that it matters to you, it will matter to your posterity. So as we approach the weekend of feasting and frenetic sale shopping, I'd like to challenge you to take a moment and think of ways that you can single out and record (in a journal or in pictures) traditions for future recollection. And I'd also like to challenge you to include the youth in your family in the execution of these traditions. (If they feel like they own a part of it, they will be more likely to continue it in the future.) And then sit back and watch them fly. They may have a twist on a given tradition that you never thought of that actually makes it better. Share the opportunities in your family and watch something amazing happen--the linking of generations and the strengthening of familial bonds. You'll be grateful for that much more this year if you do.
Source:The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More by Bruce Feiler (pgs 40-43), HarperCollins copyright 2013
