It's Spring Break here in our town, which means my 6 year old son has been lacking the structured schedule and educational instruction that his full-day Kindergarten class usually provides. So, in an attempt to alleviate boredom while at the same time trying to prevent him from losing what he has learned so far this year, I created this simple activity about fractions and very basic genetics. (Yes, they talk about fractions in Kindergarten these days!)
I raided my stash of solid-colored scrapbook paper. I simply traced a circular plate on the red sheet of paper and cut it out. If you are working with an older child, you can ask them to trace and cut, but I didn't want my son to get bored before the important stuff, so I did it quickly myself. The full circle represents the child, so my son labeled it 'Me' and '1.' Then, we worked on making three more circles, divided into halves, quarters, and eighths. The halves represented me and my husband (Mom & Dad), the quarters are his grandparents, and the eighths represent his great-grandparents. I had my son write the fractions on each piece, and I helped him label the grandparent ones. To keep it simple, I didn't put actual names on the great-grandparent pieces; I felt like that would be a bit confusing. I didn't want him getting lost in the names when I wanted the activity to have more of a math focus.
I raided my stash of solid-colored scrapbook paper. I simply traced a circular plate on the red sheet of paper and cut it out. If you are working with an older child, you can ask them to trace and cut, but I didn't want my son to get bored before the important stuff, so I did it quickly myself. The full circle represents the child, so my son labeled it 'Me' and '1.' Then, we worked on making three more circles, divided into halves, quarters, and eighths. The halves represented me and my husband (Mom & Dad), the quarters are his grandparents, and the eighths represent his great-grandparents. I had my son write the fractions on each piece, and I helped him label the grandparent ones. To keep it simple, I didn't put actual names on the great-grandparent pieces; I felt like that would be a bit confusing. I didn't want him getting lost in the names when I wanted the activity to have more of a math focus.
When all of our pieces were done, we talked about all of the people he was "made" of. Now, it's hard explaining genetics to a Kindergartner, but I tried to get across the idea that there is stuff within our cells that comes from our ancestors. All he really knows about cells are that they are tiny things that make up our bodies.
We treated it like a puzzle and put together the pieces for each 'generation' to make a whole circle. I explained to him that he is made up of parts of me, but also parts of Grandma and Grandpa because I am made of parts of them.
We treated it like a puzzle and put together the pieces for each 'generation' to make a whole circle. I explained to him that he is made up of parts of me, but also parts of Grandma and Grandpa because I am made of parts of them.
When I cut out all of the different pieces, I made sure to use a different color for each person, and I pointed that out to my son. I want him to realize that every person that he is descended from was a different, individual person, and not just a generic 'piece of the pie,' so to speak. I heard Thomas W. Jones speak this past weekend, and, when speaking on resolving identity issues, he emphasized that each ancestor is "unique in the history of the world." That's a profound statement and important even for children to realize. I want them to realize that THEY are unique in their family's story, too. And if kids think of their ancestors more as individuals, they are more likely to want to know those individuals' stories, which is a great entrance into the world of genealogy.
My 3.5 year old daughter was right there with us the whole time, so everything we talked about, she heard, too. It's tough to know how much she understood, but I let her 'do the puzzle' after her brother was done, and I tried my best walk her through both the fractions and the family relations. One variation you could do with this activity is to add photos of each person to each piece. I left those out for my son, because I actually wanted him to read the words AND focus on what the numerical fractions look like. For older kids, you could actually keep subdividing the pie pieces beyond just great-grandparents - that would be a GREAT way to help visualize the exponential increase of ancestors the further back in time you go.
My 3.5 year old daughter was right there with us the whole time, so everything we talked about, she heard, too. It's tough to know how much she understood, but I let her 'do the puzzle' after her brother was done, and I tried my best walk her through both the fractions and the family relations. One variation you could do with this activity is to add photos of each person to each piece. I left those out for my son, because I actually wanted him to read the words AND focus on what the numerical fractions look like. For older kids, you could actually keep subdividing the pie pieces beyond just great-grandparents - that would be a GREAT way to help visualize the exponential increase of ancestors the further back in time you go.
So here are close-ups of what each 'layer' of the pie looks like, in case you'd like to recreate for yourself. (Click on each image for larger view.)
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©2014, Emily Kowalski Schroeder
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