---
title: "How to Help With a School Roots Project Without Doing It for Them"
description: "Your child has a roots project (עבודת שורשים) or family-history project due. Here's how to set up the conversations, help them ask good questions, and still let it be their work."
author: "The Glow Editors"
category: "Stories for Your Kids"
date: 2026-10-23T06:05:01.612Z
canonical: "https://tryglow.ai/blog/how-to-help-with-a-roots-project-without-doing-it-for-them"
---

# How to Help With a School Roots Project Without Doing It for Them

![Old family photographs spread across a table](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1723140934387-aef910e0ea61?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3w4OTQwNjJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyfHxncmFuZGZhdGhlciUyMGNoaWxkJTIwb2xkJTIwcGhvdG9zfGVufDF8MHx8fDE3OTExMTY2Nzd8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)

> Your child has a roots project (עבודת שורשים) or family-history project due. Here's how to set up the conversations, help them ask good questions, and still let it be their work.

Your daughter comes home with a stapled sheet and a slightly worried face. Roots project. Due in six weeks. Family tree, interview with a grandparent, photos, a page about where the family came from. Somewhere between the first and second read, you start mentally drafting it yourself.

Don't. Or at least, not most of it. A roots project done by a parent produces a lovely booklet. A roots project done by the child, with a parent quietly holding the ladder, produces something better: a child who has sat with their grandmother and heard, in her own voice, how the family got here.

## What a roots project is, and why schools set it

In Israel, the roots project (עבודת שורשים) is a familiar part of school life. Children trace their family's story: where their grandparents and great-grandparents were born, how and why they came, what life was like, what the family carried with them. Most projects include a family tree, the story of the child's name and the family surname, a conversation with an older relative, an object with a history, photos or documents, and a few pages in the child's own words. Schools elsewhere set similar family-history projects under different names, and everything below works for them too.

There's a good reason behind the assignment. In research led by Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush, children who knew more of their family's stories, such as where their grandparents grew up or how their parents met, tended to show a stronger sense of who they were and of belonging to something larger than themselves ([Duke, Lazarus and Fivush, 2008](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.45.2.268)). The researchers measured knowing the stories, not producing a project. The conversations are the point.

## Agree on who does what

Before anything else, sit down together and divide the work. A simple rule: you handle access, your child handles content.

- **Your jobs:** arranging visits and calls, finding the old albums and scanning the prints, translating if a grandparent speaks Russian, Amharic, Arabic, Yiddish or French, keeping the deadline in view, checking spelling at the end.

- **Their jobs:** writing the questions, asking them, listening, choosing what goes in, and writing it up in their own words.

Younger children will need more help with the writing; older ones may want almost none. Adjust the split, but keep the conversations theirs.

## A simple plan for six weeks

- **Week 1:** read the sheet together, agree on the split, and list who your child could talk to.

- **Week 2:** your child writes questions; you find photos and documents.

- **Weeks 3 and 4:** one or two conversations with grandparents or older relatives, recorded if they agree.

- **Week 5:** your child listens back, chooses stories and drafts the pages, family tree included.

- **Week 6:** tidy, check spelling, and show the grandparents before it goes to school.

## Help them write questions worth asking

Most children start with the questions on the sheet: "Where were you born? When did you come to Israel?" Those are fine, and they get fine answers: a city and a year. Help your child add questions that bring the scene:

- What did your house look like? What could you see from the window?

- What did you eat on Friday night, or on an ordinary day?

- What did you bring with you when you moved here, and what did you leave behind?

- What was the first thing you noticed when you arrived?

- What games did you play when you were my age?

- Who in the family am I most like?

- Why did you choose my parent's name? Where does our surname come from, and did it ever change?

Then teach them the most useful trick of all: the second question. When Grandpa says "We lived in a transit camp," the follow-up isn't the next line on the list. It's "What was it like? Where did you sleep?" Our guide to [questions kids can ask grandparents](/blog/questions-to-ask-grandparents-30-kids-can-ask-and-why-the-answers-surprise-every) has more ideas written for children.

## Set up the conversation, then step back

The heart of the project is your child sitting with a grandparent and asking. A few things make it go well:

- **In person if you can.** The sofa or the kitchen table, with tea and something to eat, beats a rushed video call.

- **Ask about recording first.** Your child should ask Grandma if it's all right to record, and only record if she agrees. Recording means your child can listen instead of scribbling, and the family keeps her voice.

- **Bring something to hold.** An old photo, a passport, a recipe card or a candlestick gives the story a place to start.

- **Sit nearby, not in the middle.** Be close enough to help if it stalls, but let your child ask and your parent answer. Resist finishing their sentences, and resist correcting dates.

- **Keep it short.** Thirty to forty-five minutes is plenty for a first session. A second visit almost always brings out more.

Glow's [Living Room Stories](/features/living-room-stories) fits this moment well. Your child asks, one phone sits on the table, and Glow listens with them - the grandparent needs no app. Both people agree before it records. Afterwards the conversation is split into stories, labelled by who was speaking, and tagged with people, places and years, with follow-up questions suggested for the next visit. An aunt abroad who's in your family space can add a question of her own. The grandparent hears it first and can remove anything. It works in Hebrew, English, French and Spanish; if Grandma tells it in another language, an ordinary recording on your phone still keeps her voice.

For the family tree page, Glow can help with the groundwork too. [Scan the old prints with your phone](/features/phone-photo-scanner-for-the-family-memory-keeper), name the faces with the grandparents, and the names become a [living family tree](/features/family-tree-for-the-family-memory-keeper) your child can look through year by year. The drawing on the poster board should still be theirs.

## The object with a history

Many roots projects ask for one family object and its story: a candlestick, a passport, a coffee pot, a sewing machine that came on the boat. Let your child choose it and ask the questions: who owned it first, how it got here, what it was used for, who will have it next. Photograph it with the person who knows its story, and write the answers down beside the picture before they drift apart. Our guide to [recording the story behind an heirloom](/blog/family-heirloom-stories-how-to-record-the-story-behind-the-candlesticks-before-i) has more.

## When there are hard chapters

Many Israeli families' roots stories include painful history: the Holocaust, leaving Iraq, Yemen, Morocco or Ethiopia under hard conditions, wars, a family split across borders. A school project can open those doors without warning.

- **Prepare your child.** If you know there's a hard chapter, tell them gently beforehand, in a way that fits their age.

- **Let the grandparent lead.** Tell your child it's fine if Grandpa doesn't want to talk about something, and that they shouldn't push.

- **Stay close.** This is the moment to be in the room.

- **Talk afterwards.** Ask your child what they heard and how it felt. Some children need to process a story long after the project is handed in.

## When you don't know much, or nobody's left to ask

Not every child has living grandparents, and not every family has records. That's all right. Your child can talk to great-aunts, older cousins or family friends, or interview you about your own parents. Gaps can go in the project honestly: "Nobody knows exactly which village my great-grandmother came from. Here's what we do know." That's real history, and many teachers value it.

Several heritages? Let your child choose a branch to go deep on, or give each side a page. There's no rule that the family tree must be symmetrical.

## Let the writing be theirs

This is where most parents take over, and where it matters most to hold back. Help your child listen back to the recording and choose two or three stories they loved. Let them write those in their own words, with their own spelling mistakes in the first draft. You can help them shape it into paragraphs and fix spelling at the end. A slightly clumsy page that sounds like a child who heard the story is worth more than a polished one that sounds like a parent.

Encourage one small thing that only they can add: a drawing of Grandma's kitchen as they imagine it, a page of the words in Arabic or Romanian she taught them, a list of things they and their great-grandfather have in common.

## After the project is handed in

The grade will come and go. The recordings and stories won't, if you keep them. Save the recording somewhere the family can find it, with the date and who was in the room, and share it with the grandparent first. Ask your child which question they'd ask next time. Roots projects have a way of starting conversations that go on for years - and [family history without a lecture](/blog/how-to-teach-kids-family-history-without-a-lecture) has ideas for keeping them going.

## One step for this week

Sit down with your child and the assignment sheet. Agree on the split: you arrange, they ask and write. Then help them choose one grandparent or older relative, call together, and set a date to visit with a phone and three good questions.

## FAQ

### What is a roots project (עבודת שורשים)?

It's a family-history assignment set by many Israeli schools. Children research where their family comes from, usually by talking with grandparents and older relatives, drawing a family tree and collecting photos, documents and stories, then present it as a booklet or project.

### What usually goes into a roots project?

It varies by school, but most include a family tree, the story of the child's name and surname, an interview with a grandparent or older relative, an object with a family history, photos or documents, and the child's own reflections. Check the teacher's sheet for what's required.

### How much should parents help with a roots project?

Help with access and logistics: arranging calls and visits, finding photos, translating if a grandparent speaks another language, and checking spelling at the end. Leave the questions, the conversations and the writing to your child as far as their age allows.

### What if the grandparents have died?

Ask the relatives who knew them: great-aunts, older cousins, family friends. Old photos, letters and documents can carry the story too. Your child can also interview you about the grandparent, which is often a moving conversation for both of you.

### How should we handle painful family history in a school project?

Let the grandparent decide what to share, and tell your child it's fine if some stories stay private. Prepare them gently beforehand if you know there's a hard chapter, and be nearby during the conversation in case it's needed.


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Source: https://tryglow.ai/blog/how-to-help-with-a-roots-project-without-doing-it-for-them