Preserve the memories of your childrens youth while making a fun keepsake. At the
beginning of the summer choose and decorate a container to store all the mementos you
will collect to put inside a time capsule. When choosing a container, it should be air
tight, water tight and sturdy.
After a container has been chosen the next step is to decide how long it will be sealed for.
The longer the better, but be warned young children may want to open it up the day after
it is put away! The best thing to do is put it in a place that they dont know about or
cannot access. A good time frame is 5-10 years.
Sit down with the children and explain to them that you want to preserve the memories
that they are going to make that summer and brainstorm some of the things that can go
into it. Some ideas are:
*Photographs (get some photo-safe envelopes to store them in for protection)
*Crafts
*Toys
*Awards won
*Letters
*If you include any DVDs or other types of media you may want to consider how
they will be used in the future it is possible they may be obsolete if you are
storing your time capsule for 10 years or more into the future.
If you are going to store your time capsule for years and years make sure you leave
yourself some form of reminder to take the time capsule with you if you move (especially
if you have decided to bury it in the backyard).
Keep the items in the time capsule personal and meaningful to your family. You can
always check a history book or newspaper archive to find out about the news of the day
unless of course your family was in the news.