Family Words: Trace and Write

A family tree sits on the left of this kindergarten page: two grandparents at the top, two parents below them and two children at the bottom, one of them starred and named Anna on the sheet shown. The other five people carry the numbers 1 to 5. On the right, a panel holds five family words in dotted letters to trace, grandpa, grandma, brother, mom and dad, each with a number beside it that matches a person on the tree. Below the panel are five writing lines numbered 1 to 5. The child finds the person with each number, traces their family word and writes it again on the line with the same number.

This face joins the family words to the letters that spell them. Kindergarten children use mom and dad as spoken words long before they read them, and tracing each word beside its number links the sound, the spelling and the person on the tree. The traced words are not listed in number order while the writing lines are, so the child has to look back at the tree and the numbers for every line, and the page stays about the family, not only about handwriting. The words are Anna's: the grandparents are joined to her mom by the tree line, which is worth pointing out.

One sheet, five words to trace, five to write. The dotted letters are large and use a plain printed alphabet, so this page sits comfortably alongside any handwriting program. The grandpa has curly gray hair and a mustache and the grandma wears glasses, so the two are easy to tell apart at the top of the tree. Use it after the Who Is Who? base page, once the words are familiar. The generations face at first grade adds aunts, uncles and cousins.