Beads! Family Reunion Activities

This bead activity is perfect for your western themed family reunion.

Thanksgiving Day Arrowhead Necklace craft

bead blog

I Love Beads!  I really do.  I use them for so many activities at family reunions. 

Beach Family Reunion

The best thing I ever did with beads was to make a bead reward box for our family reunion in Lake Powell.  Instructions and printables  for the bead box are included in our Beach family reunion theme  package.  You can find it by clicking here- Beach Reunion

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Western Family Reunion

More recently, I came across this fun, simple and inexpensive bead activity that would be perfect for your western themed family reunion.

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To represent the Native American culture, make beaded arrowhead necklaces.  You can limit the number of beads that can be put on each necklace or let them go wild.  Pony beads are cheap and easy to come by at any craft store. 

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I thought the arrowheads would be hard to find or too expensive but felt pretty lucky when  found a set  of 50 Indian agate replica arrowheads at Amazon for under $10.00.  Just click on the link below to purchase.

Arrowhead necklaces would also be a fun activity on  Thanksgiving.  Set up a table away from more traditional Thanksgiving activities and let  your guests build their own creation.

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Bead Geckos

Another fun bead activity for your reunion is bead geckos.  Read our blog on Family Reunion Helper.com for detailed instructions. Bead Gecko Blog

bead geckos

Bead Geckos- A Family Reunion Ice Breaker

bead geckos

An effective way to jumpstart your family reunion is with an activity that  family members can participate in independently when they arrive at the reunion and are settling in. There is that awkward time when family arrives at the reunion  and everyone is  getting reacquainted.  Experience has proven that if there is a low key activity planned it will encourage family members to mingle and get comfortable with each other again.  A pre reunion activity also keeps younger family members busy and engaged while their parents are visiting and settled in.

Bead lizards or Geckos are the perfect solution.  Collect a supply of different colored pony beads and some satin cording and let your family create their own Geckos.

 

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What you’ll need for each lizard-

  • 2 yards satin cording of your choice 
  • 1 metal keychain or lanyard hook
  • 27 colored (shown as green in the above diagram) pony beads
  • 21 colored (shown as orange in the above diagram) pony beads
  • 2 black pony beads for eyes

They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I really recommend watching the following video to get some great instructions for making your bead Gecko.  The great thing is,  if you download the video to your tablet, the  video will be available to your guests and you won’t spend so much time  trying to give instructions as you’re registering your family members and getting them situated- they’ll be  able to watch the video!  The video lasts less than 2 minutes and it’s actually quite entertaining.

https://youtu.be/PI5Gxihkyes

You can  find more ice breaker ideas by following the link below

http://familyreunionhelper.com/blog/2010/03/really-cool-ice-breaker-games/