Genealogists love tables and charts, am I right? We love ordering facts in chronological order in neat little forms and tidy family sheets. However, if you show most young children some of these organizational tables and forms, their interest in recording family history flies right out the window.
I was recently trying to think of 'out-of-the-box' ways in which to get younger school-aged children into writing down facts about their ancestors, without the structure and tedium of line-after-line tables. I came up with what I like to call the 'Ancestor Fact Circle.' As you can see, it is very simple. There is a place for the ancestor's name at the top as well as how he/she is related to the child ('great-grandmother', 'father', etc.) There is a small inner circle for a photo. The rest of the space within the larger circle is for the child to write down facts about this person.
I was recently trying to think of 'out-of-the-box' ways in which to get younger school-aged children into writing down facts about their ancestors, without the structure and tedium of line-after-line tables. I came up with what I like to call the 'Ancestor Fact Circle.' As you can see, it is very simple. There is a place for the ancestor's name at the top as well as how he/she is related to the child ('great-grandmother', 'father', etc.) There is a small inner circle for a photo. The rest of the space within the larger circle is for the child to write down facts about this person.
Ancestor Fact Circle (Click to download.)
What facts should the child write down? That's what I love about this sheet - it is completely open-ended. You could sit down with the child and pull facts from census schedules or birth records or family Bibles. Or, you could tell the child to go up to Grandpa and ask him five or so facts about himself. The idea is to get the child thinking about and writing about the ancestors in his/her family without it seeming like a rigid or overly-involved homework project. You could even use different colored pens or markers to make it look more vibrant and colorful.
Once you complete these sheets for several ancestors, use a three-ring hole punch, and put them all in a little binder for the child. It's an easy way to make a little family history journal that they can look at again and again. In the future, if they learn something new about a particular ancestor, it would be easy for them to add that fact to the worksheet.
Here are a couple of sample worksheets that I filled out with very basic information:
Once you complete these sheets for several ancestors, use a three-ring hole punch, and put them all in a little binder for the child. It's an easy way to make a little family history journal that they can look at again and again. In the future, if they learn something new about a particular ancestor, it would be easy for them to add that fact to the worksheet.
Here are a couple of sample worksheets that I filled out with very basic information:
Completed Ancestor Fact Circle
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Completed Ancestor Fact Circle
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As always, this worksheet is FREE for all to download for personal use. Click on the image of the blank worksheet above to be directed to a PDF. You can download this, as well as all of my other free printables, from the Printables page of GrowingLittleLeaves.com.
©2015, Emily Kowalski Schroeder. Worksheets for personal use only. Do not reproduce or redistributed without written consent of owner.
©2015, Emily Kowalski Schroeder. Worksheets for personal use only. Do not reproduce or redistributed without written consent of owner.
