Our Family Flag
Peppa Pig’s family loves to jump in muddy puddles. Dora loves to cook with her abuela. Bunny siblings Max and Ruby love to play together!
Being a member of a family is an important part of every child’s identity. In addition to the love that binds your family together, families share a common language, culture, religious beliefs and/or moral values, traditions, foods, and more. All of those things add up to your family’s identity, and talking about your family’s identity will help your child define themselves as a member of that group — he or she is always welcome, and belongs, in your family.
Play to explore issues of social identity with your child!
Parent/Caregiver Tip: Most parents rarely (or never) talk about issues of identity with their kids. But kids are hard-wired to notice differences, even at a young age. Talking about your family and what makes you YOU — can help your child develop a strong sense of self!
Materials
- paper
- crayons, colored pencils, markers or paint
Instructions
- Flags are usually designed with colors and symbols that represent something about a country, state, or organization. The flag of the United States has 13 stripes for the original colonies, and 50 stars for the 50 states.
- Let’s design a flag for our family! First, let’s select a few colors that represent us in some way — maybe where we’re from, the color of our house, or the color of our favorite foods. [Younger children may want to stop here and just draw freely with their selected colors. Older children can think about this more abstractly and choose colors that represent your family’s values or ideals.]
- Now, let’s think about what shapes we should draw. How many people are in our family? What are our hobbies? What is the same about each of us? How can we represent these ideas on our flag?
- When our flag is finished, let’s hang it somewhere that our whole family can see!
