Where did your ancestors live? Whether a city apartment, a country cabin, a stone house in a village -- every home is full of stories connecting you to your past! In this project we'll show you how to discover these stories by recreating an ancestor's house. Some years ago my husband sat with his father and asked him to describe his grandfather's house in Poland. In response, his fathwer sketched the one room house with mud walls and a roof of straw. They spoke about the texture of his world, surrounded by unpaved earth, straw and stone. A fruit picker by trade, an avid reader and learned man, the two sons he raised in this simple house became influential educators and published writers.

I always heard little snippets of stories from my mom -- sharing a bed with Aunt Sadie, who lived with them until marriage, the time her fearless brother Harvey got caught clinging to the back of a moving trolley car, memories of her father bringing home autographs of celebrities who bought fabric from him at Lord and Taylor's Department Store... I always enjoyed listening to Mom's recollections of growing up in Brooklyn. Her life was fairly ordinary, yet as an adult I appreciated how they shed light on the particularities of the generation and place where she came of age. I suspected my own children would enjoy hearing her stories too. I felt my own children would be more interested in Grandma's response if they came up with the questions and they created the book.

Hi! This is the space where we'll present projects to vitalize family ties. We'll show you imaginative ways to explore family and community history, stay connected to family far and wide and infuse a spirit of play into your daily routine. Enjoy your family fun! Shari For the past fifteen years Shari Davis has been developing multi-cultural art programs, exhibits and educational resources that explore family and community history and cultural identity. As co-founder of Creative Ways she has brought these programs to dozens of schools and museums.

Question: My mother and stepfather live in one state, my father and stepmother live in another state and four siblings and seven grandchildren live in three different cities. Given the thousands of miles between us, how can we remain an active part of each other's lives? Let's face it, even with the best intentions, it's hard to find time to write letters to everyone in your family. Sure you can e-mail multiple copies of a note, but a preschooler's collage really doesn't look great on a computer screen and not all grandparents own a computer. When we recently packed up our house and three kids and moved, yet again, my sister-in-law came up with a great idea: a family letter which travels on a pre-determined route, gives each household a set time to enjoy the contents, and gathers more items at each stop.