Family Generations: Oldest to Youngest

A picture key runs across the top of this 1st grade page: three framed pairs of people hanging from one line and numbered 1, 2 and 3, grandparents first, then parents, then children. Below it are six rows, each holding three family words with a dashed box beside each one. The child writes 1, 2 and 3 to put the three words in order from the oldest generation to the youngest. The sheet shown mixes grandma, grandpa, mom, dad, uncle, aunt, sister, brother, cousin, baby sister and baby brother; the first row, for instance, is sister, grandma and uncle.

The question here is not who is older but which generation someone belongs to, and that is a first grade idea worth separating out. An uncle may be younger than a mom, and a cousin can be a grown-up, but on a family tree the uncle sits with the parents and the cousin with the children. The key at the top gives the three levels, so the child can place each word before comparing. Aunts, uncles and cousins appear alongside the core family words so the child has to think about the shape of a whole family, not just its closest members.

One sheet, six rows, eighteen numbers. Every row uses all three generations exactly once, so a row where two words seem to share a level is a sign to look again at the key. It follows the Who Is Who? base page, which introduced the tree, and comes before the clues face, where children fill in a whole tree from written sentences.