Family Tree Lesson Plans
and Family Tree Newspaper

Classroom Display of Students' Finished Family Tree Projects

Example of Family Tree Project Templates Assembled Together

Are you looking for a unique idea and way for your students to create their own family trees? Have you used traditional one page worksheets for this activity in the past?

I have created a Family Tree lesson plans set that will have your students excited and branching out to learn about the members in their own family trees.

In order to assemble the tree, there are two branch templates and a trunk template that are glued together to form a family tree that measures 18 inches in height and 13 inches in width.

Explain to your students that each family is different and their "planning worksheet" (shown below) is meant to help them plan their family tree. Students may have to add additional boxes if there are more members in certain sections of their family tree.

I designed this family tree project so that it is not too taxing on parents to help their child with the names required for this project. Parents should know the names of their own brothers and sisters and their children, their mothers and fathers, and their own aunts and uncles (hopefully!)

If you want to go farther back in the family tree for your students' projects (great grandparents, great cousins, etc), there are blank leaves so that you can add this component to your students' projects.

This set of family tree lesson plans includes two branch templates and one trunk template.

When these 3 templates are assembled together, the Family Tree measures 18 inches in height and 13 inches in width.

There are 6 branches for the key family members: mother, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, father, paternal grandmother, and paternal grandfather.

The student leaf is already on the trunk and students should glue leaves for their brothers and sisters in this same trunk area.

After the three pieces of the tree have been assembled, students glue the vertical title "My Family Tree" in the middle of the tree.

There are two sizes of leaves. The larger leaves are for the closest family members: student, brothers, sisters, mother, father, and four grandparents. The student, mother, father, and 4 grandparent leaves are already on the branch templates. (see above)

The smaller leaves (see below) are for the more distant members of their family tree: aunts, uncles, cousins, great uncles, and great aunts. You will need to print out extra worksheets of the leaves because some students will need more leaves for their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, great uncles, and great aunts.

Below I have provided a large visual example of how this family tree project works to illustrate the members of a person's family.

This is an example of the mother's branch. The mother's leaf is already on this left branch. Directly opposite (not shown), on the right hand branch, is the father's leaf.

Students write the names of each family member inside each leaf.

For this example, the mother has one brother and one sister, and these family members are the student's uncle and aunt. The student glues an aunt and uncle leaf onto the mother's branch.

The uncle has one child, so one cousin leaf is glued in this place. The aunt has two children, so two cousin leaves are glued in this place. The cousin leaves should be glued so that they are touching their parent's leaf.

If you use this format in gluing the leaves on the tree, a student may have a branch that only has their mother's leaf on it, if their mother has no brothers or sisters. On the other hand, the father's branch might be very full if he has 6 brothers and sisters, and they have a lot of children.

This unique family tree project provides a very good visual image for your students of what their family tree actually looks like.

In the example below, this student has 16 leaves/family members on her mother's side of the family and 20 leaves/family members on her father's side of the family.

Family Tree Lesson Plans Project

There is a set of Family Tree color templates (shown below) for you to use for your example that you share with your students provided in this set of Family Tree teaching resources.

It is a bit time consuming to color all the branch and leaf templates. I hope that these color printable worksheets help save you time in designing your own example that you display for your students so that they understand how to complete these fun Family Tree projects.

I have provided blank branch, trunk and leaf templates in this set of family tree lesson plans so that you can have your students design this project in any way in which you choose.

In this set of templates, the names of the family members are not written on any of the leaves and the 6 closest family members' leaves are not already included on the branches.

These family tree lesson plans work well in conjunction with a social studies unit. While students are studying a particular event in history, they could be discovering about their own roots and creating their own family tree.

This assignment works well as a week long homework activity for students to complete at home with the help of their parents. Parents will enjoy working on this very different type of homework assignment with their child and sharing information with their son or daughter about the members of their own family.

You will be amazed at your students' finished Family Tree projects and the creative ideas that they incorporate into their individual projects.

Below: This student has included photographs of her family members on her family tree project. I love that she has included photographs of her dogs laying in the grass and that she considers her dogs as important members of her family.

I try to always include a creative writing component to any assignment when I get the chance. My students need all the writing practice that I can squeeze into my lessons.

While my students are finding out the names of the members of their family tree from their mothers and fathers, I have my students ask each of their parents to share something interesting about one member of their family they may never have heard about before.

Then, my students create a newspaper and it contains two articles. One article is about a member from their mother's side of their family tree, and the other article is about a member from their father's side of the family.

I have included all of the components of this Family Tree Newspaper in this set of Family Tree lesson plans.

Students write two newspaper articles about someone on their mother's side of their family and then on their father's side of their family.

Students also have to create a comic strip for their newspapers about something interesting that happened to someone who is in their family tree.

For the final drafts of their newpaper projects, students have two templates that are glued together to form a large Family Tree Times Newspaper.

After the templates have been assembled together, the student newspaper project measures 13 inches in height and 10 inches in width.

This 5 page bulletin board banner is included in this set of family tree lesson plans.

Creative Writing Teaching Resources: