Create your own "Friends & Family Tree"

Welcome to our Family Book Club! We're all excited to read Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. 

At the beginning of Brown Girl Dreaming, Jaqueline Woodson introduces herself and the book through a family tree. Throughout the text, relationships and family are important. In order to understand ourselves better we look at our family history. Where do we come from? Who makes up our family?  

As we read Brown Girl Dreaming, we'll be working on the literacy skill of making connections. When we can make connections to the stories we read, we become more engaged and better understand stories.

 

Now it’s our turn to make our own Friends and Family Tree. It does not have to be as large as Jaqueline Woodson’s, just go as far back as you know. Families can be made up of our biological family members and the people in our lives who have become our family. Families can work together to create your very own Friends and Family Tree! Use Jaqueline’s tree in the beginning of the book as an example of how you can make your own tree. You can find more examples and templates for online family trees at Creately.com. 

 

Don’t forget to have fun with colors, pictures, and descriptions for your Friends and Family Tree! You can look for pictures in your home and have fun looking at family pictures while completing this activity and add them to your tree if you’d like. If you do not have pictures you can draw in family members on your tree or use symbols to represent each person! 

 

As a family, you can chat about some questions as you create:

• Does your tree look similar or different from Jaqueline’s? 
• What new or interesting facts did you learn about yourself or your family? 
• What can our trees teach us about our relationships with others? 
• Why are relationships an important theme or topic in the book?