Family Tree: Read the Clues

A three-generation family tree fills most of this 1st grade page. There are seven people, each in a portrait frame with a name box underneath: two grandparents at the top, two sisters in the middle with one sister's husband beside her, and two brothers at the bottom. Three name boxes are already filled, Mia, Ben and Jack on the sheet shown, and Jack is marked with a star. The other four boxes are empty. Below the tree four numbered clues give the missing names: Leo is Jack's brother. Anna is Jack's mom. Eli is Jack's grandpa. Ava is Jack's aunt.

This is the reasoning face of the family: the child has to read a relationship and then find where that relationship sits on the tree. The aunt and the mom are both women in the middle row, and only the tree lines tell them apart, since Jack's mom is the one joined to Ben and to the children. Every clue is written from Jack's side, which is how family trees are usually read, and the given names act as anchors so no clue has to be solved blind.

One sheet, four clues, four names to write. Read the clues aloud with early readers and let them do the tree work themselves, and encourage children to cross out a clue once its name is placed. If a child puts Anna and Ava the wrong way round, ask which woman is joined to Jack by a line; that is usually enough. The relationship riddles face takes the same thinking further without any pictures.