Create Your Own Kwanzaa Family History Book

12/15/2009

Contents

When it comes to Kwanzaa, one of the greatest gifts you can give your family is the gift of understanding and celebrating their past and their family and community. Creating a Kwanzaa Family History book makes this easy and is a great keepsake you can cherish for years to come. 

What You'll Need: 

* 8-1/2x11-inch sheets of black, red, and green construction paper 

* Crafts knife, metal ruler 

* White craft glue 

* Hole Punch 

* 3/4 yard narrow cord 

* Photos and photo corners

How to Make Your History Book: You can make your book more complex or more simple depending on your taste and the ages of the kids involved. Black, red and green are the Kwanzaa colors so you would want the cover of your book to be black followed by red and then green. Mount your pictures on each page using your photo corners, then you can add captions. Another fun way to accent your book is to weave different colors of construction paper through the cover by making slits in the black paper and interlacing the other colors of construction paper through the slits. You can use decorative shears to cut around the edges of the paper to give it a pretty appearance. Your kids can have fun by using crayons, markers, glitter glue and stickers to decorate their books. Once the pages are done, simply punch holes along one side of each page, then weave the cord through the holes as a binding and tie it once you've reached the end.

What's the Idea Behind the Family History Book? Each year you make a Kwanzaa history book you have a unique chance to capture that period in time, and perhaps times beforehand. You can post pictures of your Kwanzaa celebrations, and most importantly, don't forget to put in pictures of parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents. The whole idea is to give children an appreciation of their past, where they came from, and where they're going. These history books are a great way to do that. To find out more about Kwanzaa, or to get your own Kwanzaa supplies, kinarahs, candles and more just visit the Africa Imports web site or Kwanzaa Celebration page.