After looking at the flags of Australia, students in grades 5 through 7 created "flags" out of construction paper that represented their families. They also had to write a paragraph explaining the symbols and colors that they used. While I have included all of their flags, some descriptions were simply too personal (and therefore private) to include here. I was really amazed at the amount of thought--and the depth of thought--that these students demonstrated in this project.
"The red diamond in the center stands for myself. The blue for my dad, and the green for my mother. The black stands for the night when we all sit down to watch a movie in the family room (if I get all my homework done)." (6th grader)
"The green represents the men in the family, the yellow represents the girls in the family, and the 'X' represents that we are all different. The red represents how we all don't get along all the time." (7th grader)
"The yellow Star of David and the Cross are the symbols of my family's religion. The two black spears are for the Greek origin on my mom's side of the family. The axe is for the Scottish origin on my dad's side of the family." (6th grader)
"Yellow is for the happy times, the sun, and my mom. Blue is for the sky, water, and my dad. Black is for the bad times, the earth, and me." (6th grader)
"The flag shows my mom and I. My mom's color is purple. My color is blue. The black is the color of our skin, and the green is the land. In the middle my mom is holding me." (5th grader)
"The four white stars represent my family. The yellow star represents my dog. The orange Cross tells that we are Christian." (5th grader)
"The red part of the sun stands for our home. The yellow sun rays stand for our family. The red lines stand for our pets, and the blue stands for the ocean that our family loves." (7th grader)
"My flag represents my whole family as well as our ancestors. The large shamrock in the middle stands for our Irish blood. The two large yellow diamonds stand for my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even great-grandparents. The four smaller diamonds stand for myself, my siblings, and my cousins." (7th grader)
Click here for the lesson plan!