a family tree lesson plan

 (all images copyrighted by Grimm, 2011)

Title of Lesson: A Family Tree

Topic: family records
Goals of the Lesson:

1. Students will be able to use story telling/writing and listening to help created a definition of a community.
2. Students will be able to identify their own community through art activities and classroom discussion.
3. Students will be able to appreciate positive aspects of their own private and public heritage.

Objectives of the Lesson:

1. Students will demonstrate fundamental practice of recording family members by graphing a simple family tree.
2. Students will relate verbally with a partner and also in large group discussion, family memories that describe events and traditions unique to their own experiences.

Depth of Knowledge:

• Recall & Reproduction (DOK 1) - Identify purposes
• Skills & Concepts/Basic Reasoning (DOK 2) - Classify, sort items into meaningful categories
• Strategic Thinking/Complex Reasoning (DOK 3) - Make connections across time and place to explain a concept or big idea
• Extended Thinking/Reasoning (DOK 4) - Apply and adapt information to real-world situations.

Show Me Standards: (appropriate label & description)

• (VA2) FA2 - Artists communicate ideas through artworks by selecting and applying art elements and principles.
• (VA3) FA3 - Viewer's respond aesthetically to artworks based upon their personal experience and cultural values. Viewers analyze, interpret, and evaluate the quality of artwork through art criticism.
• (VA5) FA5 - Visually literate citizens understand the role and functions of art in history and culture. Artists influence and are influenced by the cultures and time periods in which they live.

GLE’s addressed in lesson: (appropriate label & description)

• EP.1.B.5 Select and use elements of art for their effect in communicating ideas through artwork. Shapes. Identify and use symbolic shapes.
• AP.1.A.5 Investigate the nature of art and discuss responses to artworks. Aesthetics. Discuss and develop answers to questions about art, such as: Who decides what makes an artwork special, valuable or good?
• HC.1.B.5 Compare and contrast artworks from different historical time periods and/or cultures. Characteristics of Artworks. Compare and contrast two artworks on: Theme, Purpose of art in culture, and Use of materials and technology.

Cross-curricular connections:
     Standards: (appropriate label & description)

1. ST - CA 4, 1.8, 2.1 and FR - II 6d, III 4c, IV 3f, 5-8
2. ST - CA 5,6 1.5 and FR - I 2h, IV 1d, K-4
3. ST - CA 2,3 1.1, 1.4 and FR - I 2a, d, III 1d, K-4
4. ST - CA 5 1.5 1.7, 2.7 and FR - I 6h, II 5 f & I, III 1j, 3a, K-4

GLE’s For Communication Arts: (appropriate label & description)

1. Writing. 3.A.5 Write effectively in various forms and types of writing. Narrative and Descriptive Writing. Write personal narrative text that chronicles a sequence of events and/or focuses on the development of a single event.
2. Listening and Speaking. 1.A.4 Listening and Speaking. Develop and apply effective listening skills and strategies. Listening Behavior. Demonstrate listening behaviors (e.g., prepares to listen, listens without interruptions, maintains eye contact.
3. Information Literacy. 1.A.4 Develop and apply effective research process skills to gather, analyze and evaluate information. Research Plan. Formulate and research keywords and questions to establish a focus and purpose for inquiry.
4. Information Literacy. 2.A.4 Develop and apply effective skills and strategies to analyze and evaluate oral and visual media. Media Messages. Identify and explain intended messages conveyed through oral and visual media.

Time Needed: 45 minutes - 55 minutes
Facility & Equipment Requirements: I taught the following project inside of a regular classroom. Students needed their own small, personal space to complete the project. I needed to show students a slide show on a computer. Samples of the project done by both professionals and students were also brought for students to view.

Resources: (books, reproductions, etc. -- non-consumables)

    1.What does a family tree look like? powerpoint

    2.Extra large sample demo for the classroom! This poster-sized chart has transparent layers that help   young students conceptualize the instructions visually.

    3.Printed samples of frakturs, I had ten of these covered in plastic

    4.Costabel. The Pennsylvania Dutch, Craftsmen and Farmers. New York: Atheneum, 1986.

Materials: (per student)

1. One paper package containing a nice variety of papers and we've included some unusual sticky backed sheets of plastic as well. This will add interest and texture to the student's projects.
2. scissors
3. glue stick
4. pencil or pen to fill out the names of family members

Vocabulary:

1. Community - A social group of any size whose members live in a specific place and share a government, have common culture and also share in a historic heritage.
2. Storytelling - To convey events through words, images and sounds.
3. Genealogy - A successive generation of blood kinship.
4. Inheritance - Any attribute, idea, or possession passed from a family member or community member to another member of their family or community.
5. Frakture - A decorative letter form from a 16th century typeface, often used by early German immigrants to craft family documents.

Artists & Artworks: "Artist's names are unknown. "Fractur, (fraktur, in German) a decorated calligraphy, is named for a sixteenth century German typeface copied from an even more ancient style of penmanship. The word "fractur" comes from a Latin word meaning fragment or break. The most skilled fractur artists was often the schoolmaster. He would put together a book of his work for his students to use as an example to copy from. Sometimes, a piece of his work would be given to a student as an award for good work or behavior. Fractur was mainly used to decorate important documents, such as birth and marriage certificates and other family records. Fractur artists would travel from house to house and create these documents for the families to display." The Pennsylvania Dutch Craftsmen and Farmers, by Eva Deutsch Costabel.
Health & Safety Concerns: There are no health and safety concerns for this lesson because the students are using supplies that they normally keep stored in their desk. Pencils, pens, crayons, scissors and white glue all come with ingredient labels that describe these supplies as "safe." Our students are also older so we believe that most of them have been taught not to throw or abuse these supplies. We do however, watch them carefully to insure they are not using their art materials in a dangerous way.
Step-by-step activity:

• The teacher will read aloud two pages describing historic family documents from the book, "The Pennsylvania Dutch, Craftsmen and Farmers."
• Then he/she will discuss with the entire class "how" each student will write a brief story about their own family.
• The teacher will then ask a few students to relate a family story to the class and remind those who are speaking to be brief. A limit of three or four stories will be listened to if each description lasts for a couple of minutes.
• The teacher will share the above four vocabulary words with the class and discuss their meanings.
• Then the instructor will pass out a sheet of blank paper to each pupil and describe with the aid of a pre-drawn family tree diagram (on poster board), how each student should draw their own diagrams on the blank sheet of paper. The teacher will also discuss at this time with the students that their own diagrams do not need to be exactly like the sample diagram. Students may be living with a foster parent, a grandparent or perhaps have two parents that are of the same gender. The teacher should be prepared to handle graciously the responses from students concerning the differences in their family unit.
• The teacher will share with the class a sample of a historical family document and then proceed to show a slide show. This slide show lasts approximately one minute. It utilizes power point software but it is shown as a slide show. If the slide show can not be shown, my partner and I will have multiple samples of family tree documents to show. We will explain to the class that each students’ family tree may look very different from our examples but will always include a graph of those the students live with inside of a family unit.
• The teacher will give each student a paper packet that contains all the art papers needed to complete a simple family tree project. Students will also be asked to retrieve their own supplies such as: scissors, pens, glue and pencils from their desks’. The students my cut out, and draw, or even tear a collage with the supplies to decorate their document.
• Students will then proceed to draw a fancier page illustrating their family tree document and looking to their recently completed diagram for the information they will include.
• The teacher will continue to ask questions about the project to ensure students understand the directions. There will be approximately 15 minutes to complete the project for the day.
• Students will be told that they may work longer on their projects if they need to the following week.
• Clean up time, the teacher will explain the clean-up procedure.
• After the clean-up procedure is done the teacher will review what the students had done for the day and explain again what community is. The teacher will then explain what the students will be doing next class, if time permits.

Closure: Teacher will ask three questions about, what is a family?

1. What's a family?
2. What makes a family?
3. Does everyone have family history?

Cleanup Time & Strategy:

1. Teacher will collect all students’ work and put on a shelf in the classroom.
2. Teacher will have all put materials in proper boxes.

Assessment: Through observation and class discussion at the beginning and end of each class period the teacher determines whether or not students comprehend the assignments. The teacher looks and listens to see if all students respond with affirmative expressions/language and completed assignments.

all articles and lesson plans are copyrighted 2011 by Grimm