Family Symbol
Here's What To Do
As a family, look through family pictures together. Encourage your child to describe or act out what they notice, or name the people they recognize.
Talk together about what is unique about your family.
Then, work together to create a family symbol or logo to represent your family. You can help your child to understand what a symbol is by making connections to familiar symbols in your neighborhood that they recognize, such as from a restaurant or store.
You can draw the symbol or create an action, gesture or sound to represent your family.
Put PEER Into Action
Pause:
- Sit down at the table together, and hold one another’s hand for just a moment. Now, you’re ready to begin!
Engage:
- “Point to ___ in this picture. What are we doing in this picture?”
- “What is special about our family? What kind of symbol can we use to show that?”
Encourage:
- Make simple suggestions as you brainstorm together. For example, if your family likes roadtrips your symbol can be a picture of all of you in the car, or a gesture like you’re steering.
- Encourage your child to share their suggestions and reasons, which might also help you understand how they see your family.
Reflect:
- “What do you like to do as a family?”
Not quite ready?
Instead of creating a symbol together, after looking at the pictures, your child can suggest an activity they’d like to do together as a family - like dance, draw or sing together.
Ready for more?
In addition to the symbol, you can come up with other ways to represent your family, such as a family song, dance or short motto.
As your child masters this skill...
They will recognize familiar people and symbols independently and express themselves artistically.