humorous illustrations of animals which reminded me of the pictures in books I read as a young child.  Consequently, this got me thinking about the type of books I read that children probably don’t read these days and how these and the household goods we had would be completely foreign to children now so we should be including these in anything we write about our past.
Therefore, I’m going to indulge myself and here are some of the books I read (4-7 years)–some you may know but I hope it reminds you of some of your favourite books from childhood. 
Books by Willy Schermelé. In fact, a search on the internet shows that I had several books by this author–Teddy Tar in Fairyland, Tubby and Tootsie, Winkie and Brownie Bright Eyes, Winkie and Wolly Wopsie.  Turns out that these are now all collectible so must check the condition of my copies.


I also enjoyed the Angus series about a Scottish terrier
Another favourite about a dog was Harry who destroyed a jersey with roses on it in one book and turned from a white dog with black spots to a black dog with white spots in Harry the Dirty Dog. I also enjoyed the Orlando series. Several French books I loved were the Jeanne-Marie series, the Happy Lion, series and who could forget Madeline?

Finally, a couple of stories set in China that I enjoyed were -


I hope this may have triggered memories of books read to you, or by you, as a young child.

Marie
Central Research Centre

Sharing family stories with your children is a great way of connecting with them, and also connecting them with their past. Often it sparks an interest in history as children begin to understand the context of the times that these family members lived in.

Children are very adept at technology, and frequently learn about the cool apps before the adults do. Many games and educational tools are developed for them, with some taking off and becoming a craze.

A new app out, is Little Family Tree which is designed to help teach younger kids about their family relationships and personal heritage using photos, games and activities pitched at their level.

It requires log-ons to connect to a family tree in FamilySearch or PhpGedView and offers five games for free, with an additional five games for $US3.99.

Great fun!

Read Thomas MacEntee review on Geneapress for a broader perspective.

Happy hunting

Seonaid

We've recently purchased a series of educational resources for children, called Branching Out.

They are US produced lessons plans by Jennifer Holik, broken into books with ages groups:
Branching out : genealogy for 1st-3rd grade students;  Branching out : genealogy for 4th-8th grade students ; and Branching out : genealogy for high school students.

Each age group contains 30 lesson plans; and works through the mechanics of step-by-step how to research your family history in an age appropriate way.

This is an exciting new addition to the Central Auckland Research Centre.

We often get children and teens on school visits come into the Research Centre. Family history is often introduced to children via the school curriculum in Year 4 and then later around Year 10; although some schools also do it in other years.


 Getting children interested in family history has fantastic results in terms of teaching them the concept of "history" and also teaching them how to research. It allows them to identify with history in a highly personal way, through their own families.

They learn valuable information seeking skills, how to use different resources, and how to cite their sources.

When they come into our Research Centre, they don't just learn to use our online databases and subscription websites. They learn about microfiche and microfilm; heritage newspapers; and using books and CD-Roms.

We have many other resources to help as well.

We try to teach them to think laterally.

Some of these schools treat family history as a year long project, with a fantastic scrapbook at the end of it.

My plan is to take these resources and adapt them for New Zealand.

I'd love to work more collaboratively with schools, raising awareness of how much we can help them.

And I am also considering developing a school holiday programme.

I think using Family History is a great way to teaching kids how to research and how to use their Library.

If you think your school would be interested, let them know and tell them to give me a call! The best way for us to help classes, if they ring and arrange a suitable time to come in.

Meanwhile, have a look at the photos on our Facebook page. Our wonderful displays team has created a display for Family History Month (August) called Family History for Teens and Children.

Seonaid