Family Tree Template

This 1st grade page is an open family tree for a child to fill in. A frame labeled me sits at the foot of the trunk, with its own short line for the child's name. Three frames hang from the top branches, four from the wide middle branch and two from the low branch on either side of the trunk, and four more stand on a shelf below the tree, fourteen frames in all, in circles, squares and arches. Every frame has a ruled line underneath or beside it for a name. The instruction asks children to draw the people who are important to them in the frames and write their names on the lines.

There is nothing to get right on this page, and that is deliberate. The tree is not labeled with grandparents or parents, so a child with one parent, two moms, a grandparent at home, stepbrothers or a family spread across countries can fill it honestly without leaving a box labeled for someone who is not there. The shelf at the bottom holds people and pets who matter but do not fit on the branches. Children decide where each person goes, and that choice is often the best part of the conversation.

One sheet, fourteen frames, fourteen name lines. Send it home as a family project or use it at the end of a family unit, after the pages that teach the words. Not every frame needs filling; tell children that before they start. The drawings are small, so colored pencils work better than crayons. The Who Is Who? and clues faces are the pages that teach the family words this one leaves open.