Hierarchy of Family
Brittany Barto
C&I 371-Social Studies
Social Studies Unit: Families
Lesson: Hierarchy of Family
Target Grade: Kindergarten
Essential Question: What makes a family?
Guiding Questions and Learning Objectives/Goals:
o It can contain others connected by birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership, or cohabitation, such as grandparents, grandchildren, siblings-in-law, half-siblings, adopted children and step-parents/step-children, and cohabitating partners.
o Students will be able to identify their immediate family.
o Students will be able to identify members of their extended family.
o Some people consider those they have kinships with to be like family.
o Students will be able to think of examples of people with whom they have important kinships.
Standards:
o Identify people who will help them at school.
o V. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
Materials:
o Me and My Family Tree- Joan Sweeney
o Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge- Mem Fox
Procedures (Activities/Assignments):
Day One
o After the read aloud, we will have a small discussion and I will pose these questions to the students, while turning to the pages in the book:
§ What types of families do we see?
§ Is the number of family members in each family the same or different?
§ Are there any families in the story that look a lot like your family? Why or why not?
o While going through the questions, I might take notes/draw pictures up on the board so students can visually see representations for the question answers.
o It will then be time for the students to construct their books using the pre-made book pages, crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc.
o After students are done creating their book, we will have a share out where all of the students can read/explain their book to the class. Only students who feel comfortable sharing will be asked to share.
Day Two
o What do we mean when we think of our immediate family?
o This is a great book to show students how a family tree can help students identify members of his/her extended family. I will read this book aloud to students, and then I will ask them if they have ever heard of the word ‘extended family’. I would remind them of our conversation the previous day about the nuclear family in hopes that they would come to the conclusion that the extended family includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. If they do not, I will facilitate their learning by giving them the definition and then outlining the person in the story’s extended family, with the students’ help, in a diagram on the board.
o Now that they have brought their planning sheets back to school, they will use construction paper to cut out a tree trunk with branches and leaves that they will use to represent the different parts of their immediate and extended families as best as they can. .
o Once students have completed their family trees on construction paper, we will have a gallery walk of all of the trees by hanging them throughout the room.
o We will then have a short discussion about our family trees talking about how they look different and why they might look different. It will be important to make students aware that it is okay if their family tree looks different from someone else’s.
o These family trees will stay up for the remainder of the unit to remind us where we have been.
Day Three
o To start off the topic of ‘kinships’, I will ask students, “Have any of you ever had a family friend or a person that was not a part of their immediate or extended family, but someone they considered to be family because of their love of that person?” Students will have a chance to share their answer to this question and if there are no students who have something they want to share or aren’t quite sure what I mean, I will give an example of someone in my life who is extremely important to me, but is not a part of my immediate or extended family.
o During the read aloud I will ask questions like:
§ Who is Wilfred’s special person that is not a part of his immediate/extended family?
§ What kinds of things do they do together?
§ Why do you think Wilfred cares for this person so much?
o After the read aloud, I will explain to students that they will be thinking of a person in their life that they have a kinship with. Then I will explain that kinship means a relationship or connection with a person of their immediate or extended family, as well as another person by ties other than blood. I will encourage the students to think of someone who is not a member of their immediate or extended family since we have already talked about those members.
o We will also take volunteers to share their pictures/sentences with the whole class based on comfort level. After sharing, students will put their pieces in a writing journal.
Assessment
o They will also be assessed informally of their knowledge, understanding, and application of what they have learned the previous day to each day’s discussion by how they answer the discussion questions.
o The students will be formally assessed on the topic of extended families by the completion of their family tree.
o The students will be formally assessed on the topic of kinships by their ability to choose a member that is not blood-related or a part of their nuclear/extended families (for our purposes) and the writing component on their person of choice, which should include reasons as to why that person is special.
*The students’ knowledge and understanding of these terms will be seen each of the three activities and the sharing time after those activities. Each student will have a slightly different interpretation/understanding/use of each of these terms, which will become apparent throughout the lesson. So there will be no one definition for each child to have memorized or I do not expect the students to be able to write about the difference in each definition I gave of each term. The terms are assessed more-so in the review of each previous day’s term/activity.
C&I 371-Social Studies
Social Studies Unit: Families
Lesson: Hierarchy of Family
Target Grade: Kindergarten
Essential Question: What makes a family?
Guiding Questions and Learning Objectives/Goals:
- What is the immediate family?
o It can contain others connected by birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership, or cohabitation, such as grandparents, grandchildren, siblings-in-law, half-siblings, adopted children and step-parents/step-children, and cohabitating partners.
o Students will be able to identify their immediate family.
- What is the extended family?
o Students will be able to identify members of their extended family.
- What are kinships?
o Some people consider those they have kinships with to be like family.
o Students will be able to think of examples of people with whom they have important kinships.
Standards:
- MMSD Standards
o Identify people who will help them at school.
- NCSS Standards
o V. Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
Materials:
- Crayons, Markers, Colored Pencils, etc.
- Construction paper
- Scissors
- My Family Book Print-out http://printables.atozteacherstuff.com/download/book_family_all.pdf
- Print-out of Family Tree Planning Sheet http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/family-tree-lesson-plans.html
- Writing sheet with box for drawing on top
- Read Alouds
o Me and My Family Tree- Joan Sweeney
o Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge- Mem Fox
Procedures (Activities/Assignments):
Day One
- Read Aloud-Who’s In a Family by Robert Skutch
o After the read aloud, we will have a small discussion and I will pose these questions to the students, while turning to the pages in the book:
§ What types of families do we see?
§ Is the number of family members in each family the same or different?
§ Are there any families in the story that look a lot like your family? Why or why not?
o While going through the questions, I might take notes/draw pictures up on the board so students can visually see representations for the question answers.
- Activity- My Family Book
o It will then be time for the students to construct their books using the pre-made book pages, crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc.
o After students are done creating their book, we will have a share out where all of the students can read/explain their book to the class. Only students who feel comfortable sharing will be asked to share.
Day Two
- To start of the lesson today, I will review with students what we learned the previous day. I will ask questions such as:
o What do we mean when we think of our immediate family?
- Read Aloud- Me and My Family Tree by Joan Sweeney
o This is a great book to show students how a family tree can help students identify members of his/her extended family. I will read this book aloud to students, and then I will ask them if they have ever heard of the word ‘extended family’. I would remind them of our conversation the previous day about the nuclear family in hopes that they would come to the conclusion that the extended family includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. If they do not, I will facilitate their learning by giving them the definition and then outlining the person in the story’s extended family, with the students’ help, in a diagram on the board.
- Activity- Family Tree
o Now that they have brought their planning sheets back to school, they will use construction paper to cut out a tree trunk with branches and leaves that they will use to represent the different parts of their immediate and extended families as best as they can. .
o Once students have completed their family trees on construction paper, we will have a gallery walk of all of the trees by hanging them throughout the room.
o We will then have a short discussion about our family trees talking about how they look different and why they might look different. It will be important to make students aware that it is okay if their family tree looks different from someone else’s.
o These family trees will stay up for the remainder of the unit to remind us where we have been.
Day Three
- I will first review the previous day’s lesson by asking students:
o To start off the topic of ‘kinships’, I will ask students, “Have any of you ever had a family friend or a person that was not a part of their immediate or extended family, but someone they considered to be family because of their love of that person?” Students will have a chance to share their answer to this question and if there are no students who have something they want to share or aren’t quite sure what I mean, I will give an example of someone in my life who is extremely important to me, but is not a part of my immediate or extended family.
- Read Aloud- Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox
o During the read aloud I will ask questions like:
§ Who is Wilfred’s special person that is not a part of his immediate/extended family?
§ What kinds of things do they do together?
§ Why do you think Wilfred cares for this person so much?
o After the read aloud, I will explain to students that they will be thinking of a person in their life that they have a kinship with. Then I will explain that kinship means a relationship or connection with a person of their immediate or extended family, as well as another person by ties other than blood. I will encourage the students to think of someone who is not a member of their immediate or extended family since we have already talked about those members.
- Activity- Kinship Drawings
o We will also take volunteers to share their pictures/sentences with the whole class based on comfort level. After sharing, students will put their pieces in a writing journal.
Assessment
- Informal
o They will also be assessed informally of their knowledge, understanding, and application of what they have learned the previous day to each day’s discussion by how they answer the discussion questions.
- Formal
o The students will be formally assessed on the topic of extended families by the completion of their family tree.
o The students will be formally assessed on the topic of kinships by their ability to choose a member that is not blood-related or a part of their nuclear/extended families (for our purposes) and the writing component on their person of choice, which should include reasons as to why that person is special.
*The students’ knowledge and understanding of these terms will be seen each of the three activities and the sharing time after those activities. Each student will have a slightly different interpretation/understanding/use of each of these terms, which will become apparent throughout the lesson. So there will be no one definition for each child to have memorized or I do not expect the students to be able to write about the difference in each definition I gave of each term. The terms are assessed more-so in the review of each previous day’s term/activity.