Family Treasure Box

Family Treasure Box

For the whole family:

Here is a family activity to kick off a new season, to pass the time on a rainy day, or to work on together when you need to slow down a scattered, hectic pace. It can be a springboard for conversations about memories and hopes for the future, and the finished piece will serve as a holder for your family’s precious mementos.

Materials

• A shoe box (or any type of box around that size with a lid)
• Scissors
• Glue or tape
• Blank paper
• Writing utensil(s)
• Your hands!
• Materials for decorating the box — images and words from magazines, markers, construction paper, glitter, felt, acrylic paints- whatever you have at hand that tickles your fancy!

Instructions

1. Trace one of the hands of each person working on the box and cut it out.  If you want, you can decorate your hands. 
2. Decorate the box using any materials you’d like, keeping in mind that you will be gluing the hands on as well (so that you will all be “holding” the box).  You can glue the hands on and decorate around them, or you can attach them on top of other embellishments.  You can place the hands wherever you wish, but be thinking about where you want them to go as you decorate so you don’t cover up things on the box you want to see. 
3. If you want, you can decorate the inside of the box as well, maybe with soft materials to hold your meaningful objects.
4. As you are creating the box, have a discussion about what you want it to be for. Is it to hold items that have special meaning of the past or the summer, items that remind you of special people or places,  written messages to one another, photos of special events, written memories you don’t want to forget, or, or, or…..?  Maybe the memory of creating the treasure box will become a special treasure, too.
5. Fill your box and put it somewhere special to treasure.