In their song “FAMILY”, the Laurie Berkner band sings, “If you’re in my heart, you’re in my family… if I’m in your heart, I’m in your family.”
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When teaching toddlers and young children, we often start our lessons with things that are already common to them. In our case, our lesson moves from the self, to the people around them… the FAMILY.
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Most, if not all of the teachers who would read this post have probably tried making a family tree craft project with their students/kids already. Last year, we had them make a handprint tree with each member’s picture and a brief description for show and tell. This year, we had them make a collage at home and a different family tree in school.
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What you will need:
- Big piece of white paper
- Small leaf cutouts
- Pictures of family members
- Construction paper
- Glue
- Bare tree outline/silhouette
- Grass cutouts
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What you will do:
Teacher’s preparation:
Cut a bare tree outline/silhouette on brown art paper
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Cut small leaves of different colors. We used fall colors like green, red, yellow and orange. The size of the leaf would depend on the size of the tree and paper
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Cut out pictures of the different family members and stick it to a fruit or circle outline.
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Cut the grass in different colors of green.
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Kids’ turn
Stick the bare tree to the white paper (in our toddlers class, we had to help them do this part, but older kids can easily do it)
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Stick the grass
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Stick the leaves unto the tree and follow the pictures
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As simple as this art work was, the kids actually loved it. They enjoyed seeing pictures of the people they loved. Not a single day passed by that they didn’t point their picture on the bulletin board and tell their friends, “That’s my mommy and daddy!”
