Issue 37.16
Little Family Tree engages young children with their personal heritage and family history through photos, games, and activities designed for their level. (Most of the games are fun for the kid in all of us.) It is an app for mobile phones that works with the FamilySearch Family Tree information. It is fun! My grandchildren love it, in fact, I find them playing Little Family Tree rather than Pokémon if they have my phone.
You can download it from the Play Store or App Store, look for Little Family Tree. You can also visit their website for more details, videos, and tutorials about the games in Little Family Tree at http://www.littlefamilytree.com.
The more information you have in Family Tree, especially photos, which you add on to your online family tree, the more fun Little Family Tree will be for your child. Play together with your child or grandchild and take advantage of the opportunity to strengthen family associations and enhance the experience through your personal memories and stories. The games and activities in Little Family Tree are centered on the person who is playing. I had already added my living grandchildren and their photos to Family Tree because it is in my private space. So this accesses it to create the games and individual players. You may choose a different person by using the back button or tapping the profile picture on the activity screens.
The youngest children are just beginning to learn family relationships and are often interested in who they are and how they are connected to their family and the world at large. However, family history information and stories are rarely shared in a way that young children understand or find interesting.
Today’s children intuitively understand how to use touch devices such as smartphones and tablets. They use them to play, watch, and learn. The objective of Little Family Tree is to bring a child’s personal family history to them through this learning medium and to share it in a way that is accessible to them. Personal family history information is obtained by having an adult login to an online family tree such as FamilySearch or PhpGedView. An online family tree account is required to play the game but a FamilySearch account can be obtained for free at FamilySearch.org.
For more information, contact Shanna Jones shannasjones@msn.com