Fraction Genealogy

Over 40 students shared their fraction genealogy. It is extraordinary how diverse we are in this region of the country. The younger students had a hard time understanding that very few of us have any fraction of American in our genealogy. After we distinguished our place of birth from our place of origin, the children began to see how they are the products of their parents and they of their parents and so on.

I had the children fill out a square separated into sixteenths for many of the children. Then, we looked at the genealogy of the parents and of their parents. They were able to see that their parents collectively have double the fraction that they have and their grandparents have twice the fraction of their parents. For example, the few children that have 1/16 Native American, we could speculate (guess) that their great-great-grandparent may have been 100% Native American.

They enjoyed speculating about parents and grandparents using multiple scenarios. 

This week, the children should map out as many of the student genealogies as possible and try to speculate as to the genealogy of the parents and grandparents.

Each child was encouraged to interview family, friends, teachers, babysitters and anyone else to map their fraction genealogy.