Make It Blog

I’ve got big plans for New Year’s Eve… last year, my nieces (age 4 and 5 at the time) and I filled out a time capsule questionnaire and stamped it “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 12/31/2009″ so tonight we get to open it!

Hopefully, they’ll be excited about their answers from last year. I remember that they weren’t too excited about answering the questions (they liked tracing their hands and feet, and LOVED decorating the envelope we put everything in).

Unfortunately, I didn’t save the questionnaire but I was able to recreate it. If you’d like to use it, you can download it here!

The things I like about this questionnaire are:

• there is a line for the child to sign his or her name – it’s a neat way to track handwriting from year to year
• there’s space to trace hands and feet so you can see how much each child grew from the previous year
• the “predications” section can be really cute – my niece predicts that we will have “sparkly water” in the future

To make your own time capsule, follow these steps:

1. Decide on a container. We used envelopes since our capsule consisted of only the questionnaire and some photos. If you want to put some fun toys in there, you can use a coffee container or a box.
2. Decorate the container.
3. Print one copy of the Time Capsule Questionnaire for each child (note: there is a questionnaire for 2011 in there that you’ll leave blank, and the “instructions” are for 12/31/2010)
4. Put the completed questionnaire (for 2010), the blank questionnaire (for 2011), the instructions, and any photos or mementos in the time capsule
5. DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 12/31/2010!

Some ideas for things you can put in your time capsule:

• lots of photos (including a picture of each child in his/her favorite outfit)
• newspaper clippings
• a toy (that won’t be missed for a whole year)
• drawings