Fabulous Family Trees

I have been blessed this year with an amazing student teacher who is filled with creative and interesting ways to present our second grade topics and objectives.  One of the first areas that she took over was social studies...an area that I have always struggled to make "exciting".  This past week the students have been learning about history.  They have learned that they have their own history and so does their family.  Their lives, traditions, and values have been influenced by the actions and ideas of their ancestors.  While this is a VERY abstract concept for second graders, she did a wonderful job of explaining it and created this adorable art project/learning project to help them grasp the concept.  The students took home a worksheet with questions similar to the ones below:

Me: __________________
My Mom:__________________
My Dad:__________________
My Mom's Mom:__________________
My Mom's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Mom:__________________

Words that describe my family and the things that they value are: (circle at least 7 or come up with your own!)

Loyalty                  Education             Charity                   Creativity        
Love                      Honesty                Celebration             Hard Work
Faith                      Togetherness        Humor                     Fun
Laughter                Hope                    Music                      Truth
Tradition

Heritage or Nationality: _____________________


Notice that the worksheet not only asks for the students family history information but also asks them to circle or list words that describe their family and what their family values.  The students then drew and colored a family tree and listed their family members names on the branches (we tried to have them keep it mono-colored, but otherwise gave them free reign to be creative).  Then the students used colored paper dots as leaves and wrote their "family description words" on the dots.  They turned out AMAZING!!! I love how different and interesting the color choices were!  Do you have any fun social studies ideas that you love?

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle