Creating Your Own Family Album
Sharing family photos, memories, and stories are wonderful ways to deepen your child’s connections and bonds to their family. Knowing this importance, the new season of Sesame Street celebrates the diversity of children’s families and communities.
In the “Family Album” episode, cousins Tamir and Gabrielle work together to make a birthday present for their Grandma Nell. They decide to make a family album. While placing pictures into the album, a gust of wind blows four of their photos away.
Together with Elmo and Abby, the friends search to find the missing family photos. After finding them, Elmo and Abby notice that Tamir and Gabrielle’s family members have different skin colors. They learn that there can be many different beautiful colors in the same family and that’s because of something called melanin. Melanin is something we all have inside our bodies that makes our skin different colors. Tamir and Gabrielle’s family members may have different skin colors, but they are all party of the same family!
Together with your child, create a family album. Collect pictures of various family gatherings such as holiday celebrations, family sports games, and weekend activities. Share stories with your child as you place each photo, drawing, or other objects onto a page. Welcome your child’s questions about what makes the members of your family special, including details about them, such as their skin colors, hair types, and so on. These are just a few of the things that make each of us special.
Materials
Directions
Invite your child to decorate their family album. Help them choose from a variety of crafting supplies and add their creative designs to the cover and back of the album. Encourage them to use their imaginations and decorate any way they’d like such as choosing to use their favorite color(s) or make their favorite animal(s). Let the album dry if using glue before moving on.
With your child, collect pictures you’d like to add to their album. As you add each picture, talk to your child about those moments they spent with their family. What do they remember about that day? Do they remember the delicious food they ate or the things they saw and did while visiting a new place? What was their favorite part of that day?
Once all the pictures are added to their album, look back through the album together and talk about all the beautiful skin colors within your family. Explain to your child that you all have different skin colors because of something called melanin. Melanin is something we all have inside our bodies that makes our skin different colors. We all have different amounts of melanin which makes our skin different colors. Their parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins may all have different skin color and still be part of the same family.
Every family’s special with all our beautiful, different colors.
Want more “Sesame Street” activities? Play Elmo at the Farm or color Elmo’s puppy Tango to continue the fun!
Photography by Sana Kifafi.
Author: 
Arts