My daughter’s teacher assigned her a social studies project to do where they compared and contrasted life 100 years ago to today. One of the assignments was to interview a grandparent (or parent, friend, whomever) and ask them a few questions about how life was like when they were 8 years old. What was school like, or family life, or transportation, etc. My daughter interviewed a grandparent from both sides and turned in her interview notes.
The larger project was to do whatever they wanted to compare and contrast what life was like “long ago”. So, we decided to take the interview one step further. We first made a longer list of questions. We then called up each grandparent again, asked them the questions, and then asked them to gather some photos from when they were 8 years old and send copies to us. My daughter then answered all the questions herself.
We then put all the answers side-by-side in a chart. We added photos, put in the respective years (when everyone was 8) and added in a few pages of extra photos at the end.
It took a few days to pull it all together, but in the end we had a nice collection of memories. Plus, we all had some laughs at the photos, my husband and I both learned things about our parents and my kids learned what a pinafore and knickers were.
This is such a fun and easy project to do. It connects people, can give some a reason to organize old photos, and can create memories for your children with their grandparents during this time of “social distancing.” Maybe they can’t sit next to them on the couch, but they can still talk with them on the phone or video chat and hear the stories.
So, make up a list of your own questions, or start with these. This can be one homeschool project you’ll want to keep forever.
Make new memories while reliving old memories.
