Learn about creative ways to teach future generations about today. Have you ever thought about what the world will be like in the future. What are some creative ways to teach future generations about today? What are you doing today, that you may no longer be doing 20 or 30 years from now? Think about it. What are you holding in your hand right now? My guess is a cell phone, or you are are on a laptop. Will that exist in the future?What is your day job, and how do you think it will be different in the future? How will teaching or schools be educating students 10, 50, or 100 years from now?

There are already so many new technologies and opportunities to inspire, lead, shape, and help people discover how to make new connections, engage students, solve problems, and create fun learning environments redefining education and future careers, and changing the future.

I remember I could not wait for the bookmobile to come to our school. They always had the coolest books. Remember going to the library all the time just to get homework done. Now that is a thing of the past. There are now so many books online, free downloadable activity books, coloring pages, or other similar things I remember from the bookmobile. Also, the internet is flooded with information to help students get their homework done. I remember feeling like I could not survive as a child without a computer at home. Now students are assigned their own tablets for school in addition to books they may have to buy for classes, and that is for elementary schools. I am not even discussing college students.

1. Share Your Stories of Past with Your Children

It is so amazing how things change so fast. Many times we get so busy in our day to day, that we forget what we did yesterday. I am someone who firmly believes you can gain respect and help your kids be grateful for what they have, by teaching them what it was like when you were a kid. I remember hearing my parents start their stories, “When I was a kid….” Back in the past, I remember thinking, “oh boy here comes another childhood story.” Sometimes you do not realize how special your elders and mentors are until you leave their house, grow up, and/or have children of your own. Now, I know why they told me all those stories.

2. Message to the Future

Can you imagine if we could show our kids what their life would look like in the future, if they keep up their current habits and lifestyle. I am sure there are many nurses and doctors who wish they could get through to the children of today about how unhealthy some food are and could go on the rant about how we are super sizing our kids with food today. What about all the extra undue stress that the world is putting on our children too. Is there something you would like to say to your child about how to reduce stress now, so their lives will be better or less anxiety ridden in the future. If you could write a letter to them to read when they are a baby, and when they become a teenager, they get to read it, what would you say to them? Also, include words of encouragement, happy stories, and advice for other areas of life they may face in the future.

3. Make a Video about the World Today

Since everyone is using videos nowadays, why not make your own about what the world is like around us today. Include significant people in your life, in the video. Ask them different questions, interview style, about what they think the future will look like. I am sure it will be interesting for those of the future to watch the video again and see if any of your predictions came true. You could also create your own family blog and write about different current topics each day. It would be interesting to see how fast the trending topics change over the years, while reading the blogs in the future.

 4. Make a Time Capsule

Preserve some of the most important items you think the future generations would appreciate in a time capsule. You can buy an “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule from www.TimeCapsule.com and design it however you want on the outside. It is a nice tin that you can draw on with markers, paint on, attach scrapbooking type embellishments on, ribbon, stickers, etc. The sky’s the limit. You can call the time capsule anything you want. For example, “My Life” Time Capsule. These time capsules are not meant to be buried, but instead to display on a shelf in a special room in your house as a reminder of your world today, to give to future generations or your own children in the future, for when they too ask, “what was it like when you were a kid?”

So what was life like when you were a child? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post Creative Ways to Teach Future Generations appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

Have you ever wanted to write a message to the future letter to yourself? It sat in my closet for years. I don’t even remember what is in it. Do you remember making a time capsule as a kid in elementary school? Do you know what ever happened to your own time capsule?

How have you changed over the past years? What has affected you in life to make those changes? What advice would you give to others or your own children or grandchildren about life today? A time capsule is a great place to save that advice, so when your loved one is of a specific age, you can give them the time capsule filled with your valuable insight about life.

Write Letters of Advice

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone you love? Remember that feeling of receiving an actual letter in the mail, rather than email? Technology is amazing, don’t get me wrong here. I would not be able to stay up to date with the life of my aunts, uncles, and cousins in Texas if we did not have social media and email. However, there is nothing like receiving a personalized note or letter in the mail.

What to Do with Your Accumulating Wisdom

So as we all grow up, we accumulate more wisdom on a daily basis. So what is your view on life? What mistakes have you made that you do not want your children or grandchildren to make? What success have you had and what steps did you take to get there? Most importantly, do not ever forget to tell your loved one how much you love them in a letter. You never know what can happen to your life, unfortunately.

Don’t Wait Until You are Gone to Be Remembered

Pass on your legacy today. There are many different ways to share your wisdom in life to your children and grandchildren. How else do you know what you have in common with your grandparents or great grandparents, if they never share their stories with you?

Topics to Write About in your own “Message to the Future” Letter

1. Favorite recipe and how you created it or who it has been passed down from.

2. Teach a skill, like fishing, fixing something on your house, or how to advance yourself at your job. The ideas are limitless. Share your gifts and talents with your children and grandchildren.

3. Talk about your family tree and use one or two words to describe the personalities of each person.

4. Pretend like you are going through family interview questions, and talk about your own biography. Many people’s lives are so fascinating, but you will never know about them if these stories are not written out. Talk about what life was like when you were young.

5. Talk about what clothes you wore as a kid, or what you did for fun when you were bored.

Make a Bigger Connection and Add Personal Mementos and Memorabilia to Your Time Capsule

Finally, add more tangible items to your time capsule, along with these sentimental letters. I am sure you have a box somewhere or a storage container in your attic with items that can help tell your life story. What do you want to pass on to your children or grandchildren that you want preserved forever? By passing on your memories, you are making sure you will never be forgotten about.

Do not wait until it is too late to pass on your life story. It will be the most memorable and lasting gift you can give to your children or grandchildren. Check out this other helpful article about Five Ways to Pass on Wisdom to Younger Generations. Get your own time capsule here today and get started on your “Message to the Future” letter to your children or grandchildren.

What is your favorite story from your grandparents? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post 5 Topics for your Message to the Future Letter appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

Memories are some of the most special moments we want to treasure forever. That is more difficult for us all, as we get older.

“She just does not seem to be all there anymore. She is forgetting more. She is having a hard time recognizing me as her daughter. She is forgetting my name.” – my Aunt complained to my mother over the phone. My aunt was living in Texas with my grandmother, and my mom (her sister) lives in Indiana. It was heart retching knowing there was very little my mother could do, to help my Aunt and Grandmother, in Indiana.

What To Do To Help the Older Generation

Despite our distance, my grandmother and I were close. She prayed for my future husband for years, wherever he was in life, to be ready for me mentally, emotionally, and physically. Her prayers worked as I found “the one.” How could I ever give back to my grandmother who was an Alzheimer patient. I do not wish this problem, or any other memory disorder, on anyone. It is hard to deal with, as family members let alone being the actual person trying to live through this struggle.

How a Memory Box or Time Capsule Helps

Even though my family lived far away from my grandmother, that does not mean we could not help. We helped my Aunt recall memories, wrote down stories we remembered, recorded our voices, and of course as grandchildren created homemade cards for grandma.

A memory box or time capsule can do a similar function to help. What would you put in a memory box to stir up a loved one’s memory, emotions, and thoughts?

Image taken from http://sheffieldtimewalk.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/manor-memories/

A Memory Box or Time Capsule helps us all Recall the Past

Include things like:

• Newspaper clipping of special events, or marriage announcement

• Postcards of places visited

• Favorite recipes (maybe even take the time then to make the recipe together)

• A letter from each of you as family members thanking your loved one for all he or she has done for you.

• Family photos

• Special necklace or watch your loved one constantly used to wear

• Video of your loved one growing up. Go through the video slowly pausing to say each person’s name (especially if they are family members) to help your loved one recall names with faces.

• Hobbies your loved one usually does (for example: a sample of his or her quilt or a golf ball)

• Include items which an Alzheimer’s patient loves or boosts their self-esteem. Things that give your loved one their identity back.

• A memory box or time capsule can help an Alzheimer’s patient on all sensory levels. Include things that relate to all their senses. For example, maybe include their favorite perfume or cologne in a small bottle.

This is a fun activity to do for the family, as much as it is for your loved one to open the memory box or time capsule. You all get to share sentimental moments with each other, bonding closer and inspiring conversation about the nostalgic items. Whatever you include in your memory box or time capsule, make sure it reflects the senior’s loves, interests, and significant or milestone moments in the history of their lives, and has strong meaning to him or her. You may want to include an inventory checklist of each item you include with a tag on each item with the story associated with each nostalgic memento. This will help your loved one be able to read and review things on their own time too.

If everything goes well, memory boxes are a great means to help an alzheimer’s patient, because when a senior sees one memory trigger, it may help them recall another memory to talk about. You may even find out something new about them, that you had no idea about. To read more about this topic, check out http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/09/music-memory-box

What would you put in a memory box or time capsule for your older loved one, to help them remember better? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

Credits:

Main Family Quote is available as wall art from http://www.wisedecor.com/decor/wall-art/theloveinour.html

The post Top 10 Reasons to Make a Time Capsule for an Alzheimer Patient appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

She was scared to take baths as a three year old. Until, one day her aunt showed her how the doggy takes baths too. When you make things more fun, children are more likely to listen and imitate. My niece and I gave the dog a bath after playing fetch with the hose and the dog. Cinnamon, our dog, is a Chocolate Lab and Australian Shepherd mix. She is full of energy and a great life lesson teacher. After playing in the water, Cinnamon shook, which splattered all her water onto my niece and I. My niece, Skylar, laughed and realized taking a bath could be fun. Then a few hours later, Skylar gladly took her own bath, had fun, and shook herself when she was done. I laughed so much at her. I was happy she had fun, changed her perspective about a daily skill, and she and I had a great bonding moment to last for years to come.

What special milestone moments would you like to relive again?

There are many different benefits of a time capsule. A time capsule has the ability to transport both you and your loved one to a different place and time. It can be an activity to break up your daily worries or activities in life. Most people enjoy hearing stories behind mementos. So why not start making your time capsule today? It will be a legacy keepsake for your future generations to enjoy.

Benefits of a Time Capsule

1. It is a great bonding activity to do with other family members or friends.

2. It is a great way to get others communicating about their thoughts and feelings (can be very therapeutic).

3. It can be a form of meditation, as you are reflecting back on your life or where you want to be in the future. We all need to have goals in life.

4. It can be a way for you to bury your past (so-to-speak), and start a new life of freedom. This would be a time capsule I do not know if I would want to reopen in the future though, unless you completely feel healthy and want to see how far you have grown spiritually, mentally, emotionally, or physically. For example put a picture of how you look now in the time capsule, then lose weight, and see how far you have come years later.

5. Creating a time capsule can be a fun, rewarding hobby, like scrapbooking.

6. Similar to a classic movie or song bringing back great memories, creating a time capsule can do the same. This is especially important for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. It is like reminiscence therapy. What is a classic movie you have not seen for a while? A time capsule improves memory and creates a family heirloom.

7. A time capsule would be a great, unique centerpiece for a Wedding or Baby Shower. Make a game out of it, and have guests bring things to put in it for the future couple or baby to see or read years later. What are your predictions of where the couple or baby will be in life, in the future?

8. A time capsule can make you use all of your senses to create and preserve your nostalgic moments.

9. It can help close the gap of generations. For example, explain how to use technological things like the latest cell phone (if we even have cell phones in the future).

10. It can help military families (especially those who are gone when their child is born), not forget any moments or memories (as you can write each day what is happening in a journal). Memories can fade easily, so help preserve those smaller, and seemingly less significant events that happened during your separation, while one of you is in the military.

11. Your family history is important, so include small notes on each item in the time capsule. Decades from now, your descendants can learn all about what life was like when you were born or alive. A time capsule is the best tangible history book around.

12. For an adopted child or someone in foster care, a time capsule can be like their beginning “life story,” so he or she feels some attachment to their biological family and has a sense of belonging.

13. A time capsule can be like a memorial, to help with grief and bereavement of a past loved one.

14. A time capsule helps preserve your favorite memories, in a safe place.

15. It can be a creative way to share wisdom, from adults or grandparents to children or grandchildren.

16. It helps you prioritize and organized which favorite baby items to keep or give away.

17. It is a tangible scrapbook, for those things that do not fit in a scrapbook.

18. It protects your items better than a scrapbook (if you do not bury it).

19. A time capsule can be a great classroom activity to unify students for a single, positive purpose.

20. A time capsule can help restore marriages, by opening the Wedding Time Capsule, when you have an argument together in the future, to remind you why you got married.

If you want to read more information or research on the benefits of a time capsule or memory box, check out http://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1363&context=honors St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital even understands the benefits of creating a time capsule or scrapbook. Check out why at http://www.memorychestmemorials.com/Blogs/Memory-Chest-Memorials/February-2013/Therapeutic-Scrapbooking-A-Technique-to-Promote-Po

I am sure there are many other benefits of creating a time capsule. What benefits can you think of? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

The post 20 Key Benefits of a Time Capsule appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

You don’t know what you have until it is gone. Recently I attended a funeral of a friend’s mother. It is sad, that sometimes it takes the end of our lives, to help us put our lives in perspective now. How do you preserve those memories, that come flooding back to our minds, when we look at the faces or places, important in our lives? We have photos we can put in photo albums, giving us a sense of accomplishment. When your children grow up, you as a parent want to know that they are continuing to live out your family values. There are other tangible ways to accomplish this, besides a photo album. Create a digital scrapbook, or save your valuable emails back and forth with friends and family. You can also record audio stories to remember the actual excitement, fear, frustration, happiness, or other emotions during a special event or milestone moment. You can listen to the stories over and over whenever you want, even when your loved one has passed away.

However you choose to remember your memories, the important point is that you do not lose your stories or tangible objects that go with your special memories. Let’s learn more about how to preserve family stories and values. Save your mementos in a time capsule keepsake. These sentimental items will help with the details of your stories and will create a richer moment of celebration, years later when you open your time capsule to tell your grandchildren or special someone what that time in your life was like.

So, as you family gathers around for the next holiday or get-together, make sure you spend time recording those family stories being told. Gather one object, which has important meaning, from each family member, to put in a time capsule keepsake. Treasure your family values forever, for your future generations. Don’t forget to include a family tree in your time capsule.

Do not wait till later to gather your family history stories. It may be too late, as we all get older and forget things or these valuable stories. Get children involved, and show them how much you value family, and have them include their own drawings in a time capsule. What will their own interpretation of their drawing be, years later in their lives when the time capsule is opened? Do not devalue family values. Capture them in a time capsule keepsake today. To learn more about this topic read http://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/preserve-your-familys-living-legacy-12-12-12/ or to make your own family heritage project, check out http://www.teachingwithtlc.com/2007/10/family-heritage-project.html

What is one value you have learned from your family, that you would like to pass on to your children? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

www.timecapsule.com

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