Design a Coat of Arms
Designing a coat of arms for your family requires many decisions to be made. What character qualities are most valued by the family? How will you put these on your design? You will need to demonstrate a balance between taking forever to decide on themes and colors and choosing too quickly. Be sure that the children know how a Coat of Arms was first used and how families, businesses, and communities still use them today.
When the design is complete, review the decisions that needed to be made to produce the design. How did you get everyone to agree when there was a conflict? Were artistic members of the family relied upon more heavily or did everyone have an equal say? How much research into family history went into creating the design? Does this design represent the historical family or just this particular family? Another option is to have each individual in the family create their own Coat of Arms. If you do that you can look for common themes among the family members. After you see what each has created, do you have ideas you want to add to your own now? If you do individuals, can you come up with a single Coat of Arms that covers the family as a unit or as a group of individuals?
To process this activity, ask these or similar questions:
- Was it fun to create a Coat of Arms or Family Crest?
- Are you proud of the design(s)?
- Does having this symbol make you feel closer, more connected?
- What will you do with this design now that it is complete? Some websites that have instructions on making a Family Coat of Arms can be found at:
https://kids.kiddle.co/Coat_of_arms
https://www.britannica.com/topic/coat-of-arms
https://www.heraldryandcrests.com/pages/name-search
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Family-Crest