Teach Family Member Vocabulary with a Celebrity Family Tree [Free Template]

One of the first themes we teach beginner students is family, and this year I tried a twist on the traditional family tree that was a huge hit, so I’m sharing it with you!

As part of the family unit in many classrooms, students are asked to create a family tree or fill in an existing template with their family members labeled in the target language or L2. There’s nothing wrong with this assignment in theory, but in practice, it can be an uncomfortable or awkward experience for many students.  I want them to be able to correctly identify siblings, parents, and extended family members, but not at the risk of causing discomfort or worse. The alternative I tried this year was to create a Celebrity Family Tree, and I am definitely keeping this activity for future classes.

To create a Celebrity Family Tree, I had the class pick a celebrity – they chose Beyoncé (of course) – and then one by one we added fake family members who were all other real celebrities chosen by the class. Rihanna was her mom, Jeff Bezos was her dad, Robert Downey Jr. was one of her four siblings, and Nicki Minaj was her darling grandmother. Each time we added a family member, we’d talk through the family tree again, getting in tons of repetition of the target vocabulary without it seeming repetitive.

What made the Celebrity Family Tree activity even more successful was the Google Sheets template I used to go along with it, which included spaces to add the celebs’ pictures. I filled it in in real time as we added Beyoncé’s fake family members, and because it’s a Google Sheet, I was able to insert pictures without having to navigate to another window, or copy and paste from anywhere else. The students had the visuals, so although I taught them the family member vocabulary at the beginning of that same lesson, the activity took place entirely in the L2, which for us is Hebrew.

One drawback of the family tree template I used was that it didn’t include spaces to add aunts, uncles, cousins, or even siblings. So after the lesson, decided to create my own template to use in future classes. It’s also designed in Google Sheets, and although it’s in Hebrew, you can adapt it to whatever language you teach. Take a look below!

Feel free to use the template to create your own celebrity family tree, and you are also free to make whatever adjustments you’d like for your class. Just submit your first name and email address in the form at the end of this post, and you’ll get a link to make a copy of the template. It’s a Google Sheets form, so you’ll need to be logged into your gmail account in order to make the copy.

We created Beyoncé’s [fake] family tree together as a class, but this also works well as an individual or small group assignment, during or outside of class. You can also switch up the kind of information you input in the family tree; we just did name and family member title, but if you’re practicing numbers, you can list ages or dates of birth – also made up, of course. 

Let me know how your Celebrity Family Tree activity goes in class, and feel free to tag me in any pictures on Instagram @thekefar!

Until next time, keep teaching + thriving 💙