How to create a child theme for Twenty Sixteen

A child theme, in WordPress, according to the definition in the Codex, is

…a theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme

Creating a child theme is the recommended way to change the appearance of your theme.

These are the basic instructions to create a child theme for the Twenty Sixteen theme:

create the directory wp-content/themes/twentysixteen-child

create the file style.css inside the dir, containing the following lines

/*
 * Theme Name: Twenty Sixteen
 * Theme URI: 
 * Author: FC
 * Author URI: 
 * Description: Twenty Sixteen child theme 
 * Template: twentysixteen
 * Version: 1.0
 * License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
 * License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
 * Tags: one-column, two-columns, right-sidebar, accessibility-ready, custom-background, custom-colors, custom-header, custom-menu, editor-style, featured-images, flexible-header, microformats, post-formats, rtl-language-support, sticky-post, threaded-comments, translation-ready, blog
 * Text Domain: twentysixteen-child
 */

* Theme Name: Twenty Sixteen

* Theme URI:

* Author: FC

* Author URI:

* Description: Twenty Sixteen child theme

* Template: twentysixteen

* Version: 1.0

* License: GNU General Public License v2 or later

* License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

* Tags: one-column, two-columns, right-sidebar, accessibility-ready, custom-background, custom-colors, custom-header, custom-menu, editor-style, featured-images, flexible-header, microformats, post-formats, rtl-language-support, sticky-post, threaded-comments, translation-ready, blog

* Text Domain: twentysixteen-child

replace the author in the Author line with your name

create the file functions.php inside the twentysixteen-child dir, containing the following lines

<?php
function my_theme_enqueue_styles() {

    $parent_style = 'twentysixteen-style'; // This is 'twentyfifteen-style' for the Twenty Fifteen theme.

    wp_enqueue_style( $parent_style, get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
    wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style',
        get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',
        array( $parent_style ),
        wp_get_theme()->get('Version')
    );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_enqueue_styles' );

?>

<?php

function my_theme_enqueue_styles() {

$parent_style = 'twentysixteen-style'; // This is 'twentyfifteen-style' for the Twenty Fifteen theme.

wp_enqueue_style( $parent_style, get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );

wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style',

get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',

array( $parent_style ),

wp_get_theme()->get('Version')

);

}

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_enqueue_styles' );

Go to WordPress Administration->Appearance->Themes, and activate your new TwentySixteen-child theme.
If you have modified any theme option, you may have to re-save it.
All done.

Further details, as creating a child theme from an already modified parent theme, can be found in the Codex

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