The human family tree

Topics Year 4/5

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Objectives

Science

Recognise that living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago.

History

Continue to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of world history, and note trends over time.

Lesson Planning

Children learn about and create their own family tree of human evolution.

Teaching Outcomes:

To create a family tree showing how early humans and great apes are related.
To put images of early humans in chronological order.

Children will:

Put dates into the correct chronological order.
Reconstruct the family tree of great apes.
Explain how some of the species are similar and different to each other.

Planning

Provided Resources

Introductory pdf
Family tree templates
Pictures of great apes and early humans

Unit Resources

You Will Need

Ask children to bring in photos of their family members
A4 sheet for each child
Large piece of paper, preferably A1 or A0 already prepared with a tree drawn on

Weblinks

A family tree of how humans compare to other great apes (warning – there are details about the sexual activity of the species) from pbs.org
A family tree of ancient human species from humanorigins.si.edu
Image of the possible direct and indirect ancestors of modern humans from shasthram.com
3D interactive skulls of different hominids to compare from nhm.ac.uk
Family tree templates from familytreetemplates.net