You may want to discuss this project with the teacher. I was reading recently that they now recommend to call it a “family orchard” project. This takes into account all of the different family types we see these days (including divorced parents, step families, adoptive families, birth families, etc) and children can do a tree for each family.

I don’t think they are too young. I would definitely incorporate the adoption (as much as you know) as long as your son is comfortable with it. He should be the one to decide how much he wants to share.

Hope this helps. :o)

Thank you for your advice.  I appreciate it.  I posted this on another group and got other responses as well.  Some asked what we ended up doing..

My son and I chose a small tree branch off of our cherry tree.  He then told me who was in his family (parents, sibling, grandmas & grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins).  We limited it to only immediate family.  I then made leaves on the computer and put each persons name and picture on a leaf (for the aunts, uncles and cousins, I did a family photo).  We printed them out on green paper and then my son cut out each leaf (ie person or family).  Then we hole punched the leaves and using string tied each leaf to the branch. 
I did make a leaf that had a heart instead of a picture and wrote, Bio-Mom & Dad.  My son asked me why there was a heart and I told him that was for the mommy whose tummy he grew in.  He said, oh, what was her name again?  I told him her name and then asked him if it was Ok that we put her leaf on the tree and he said, yes.  I explained to him that he will need to tell the class about his family and if he chooses to tell them about the adoption he can, but only if he wants to.  He smiled. 
The tree branch looked amazing when we were done. 

I’m sure he is still too young to really understand bio- mom and adoption, but I know that his bio-mom is important to me because without her I would never have such an amazing little boy. 

Also, in my search for family trees and adotpion… I came across a beautiful poem.. Legacy of an adopted child…if you haven’t read it, I recommend reading it.. It brought tears to my eyes as it says exactly what I feel inside. 

Good luck to each of you as you share these types of projects with your children. Thanks again for your advice.

Such good ideas…Even my birth children have difficulty with this project as they were invitro and I am a single parent.  I love the heart and leaves idea….my kids are in kindergarten and i am sure this will be a project in the future…

Suzi the orchard is so much more appropriate in todays world… definitely going to use this one!

Adoptive Families Magazine has a great resource page with handouts for school. http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/clip.php They address the family tree thing by making the bio-fam the roots of the child’s tree.

@Kei, you are way creative! Can you post a pic of your project? Also, I love that you asked your son who’s in HIS family.

Adoptive Families Magazine has a great resource page with handouts for school. http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/clip.php They address the family tree thing by making the bio-fam the roots of the child’s tree.

@Kei, you are way creative! Can you post a pic of your project? Also, I love that you asked your son who’s in HIS family.