Preschool Family Tree Activity: Easy History Project for Young Learners

When it comes to teaching or even discussing history with preschoolers, it can be difficult to know how to start. The past is an abstract concept that is difficult to explain, let alone trying to explain how long ago something happened or how that might be relevant to your child’s life today.

A wonderful place to start is with a family tree project. This format helps children understand events, people, and places that came before them and how those things are connected to their lives today.

NOTE: Feel free to modify this project in whatever way will fit your unique family. Single parents or blended families often choose to focus on only one parent’s family tree. You don’t even have to use your own family! You can use a fictional family from a favorite book, a historical family, or even one you make up yourself. It’s great if this project can be used to teach your child about their own family’s history, but the real takeaway is to open your child’s mind to the vocabulary and concepts involved in talking about things that came before them.

Materials

• Family tree template
• Pencil
• Photos of family members (that you don’t mind cutting up), scissors, and glue sticks, OR crayons or markers for drawing family members and decorating the tree
• Optional: other family mementos to enhance storytelling about the past:
  - Photo albums
  - Scrapbooks
  - Family heirlooms
  - Postcards and letters

Instructions:

Tell your child that you will be making a family tree, which is a picture that shows their family’s history. Start with your child and their siblings, if they have any. Either cut pictures and glue them onto the tree in the appropriate locations, or draw pictures of each family member. As you do so, talk to your child and tell them stories from the past about these people. Children love to hear about the day they were born!

Next, move to the next level of the tree–the parents–continuing to use vocabulary words that reinforce the concept of the past. “Before you were born . . .” Tell stories about when you were a child. Tell them how many years ago that was before they were born. Finally, move to the grandparent level and repeat the process.

This is a simple family tree focusing on three generations, but your child will be able to see how the tree expands as it goes up (themself, two parents, four grandparents). You can explain to them how their family continues to expand in that way the further back into the past you go. Feel free to decorate your family tree when it’s done!

Here are some vocabulary words you might look to incorporate:

• Past
• History
• Before
• After
• Next
• ______ years ago
• Ancestor
• Descendent

Teaching moments

• If you have mementos or heirlooms from past family members, this is the perfect time to explore those with your child. Did someone bring a book from another country? (Show them where that is!) Do you have a piece of jewelry that was passed down for generations? Do you have a picture of your great uncle in uniform? (Talk about events that happened long ago!)
• If grandparents are available to help with this activity, all the better! Video call them to show them the tree and ask them to tell stories about their childhood or share memories of their parents.