Family and Friends Worksheets and Activities for ESL Students

Our family and friends are important to us, and at some point or another, we have all found ourselves speaking about them. Therefore, It is essential to equip your students with the necessary vocabulary to do the same. In this article, we will take a look at various worksheets and activities designed to help build your student’s family-related vocabulary. These worksheets and activities are designed for students at different levels. Let’s jump right in.

Family & Friends Worksheets For Elementary Students

At this level, your students would be more reliant on visual aids than your more advanced students. The following worksheets are geared towards your younger learners.

• Family Powerpoint - This 14 slide PowerPoint introduces family-related vocabulary. It features attractive clip art, designed to capture the attention of your younger students.  

• Elementary Family Day Word Search - This Family Day word search consists of 11 family-related words. They include Family, Parents, Mother, Father, Children, Holiday, Weekend, Dinner, Skating, February, and Community. 

• The Simpson Family- This 24 slide PowerPoint features perhaps one of the most popular animated families on television, The Simpsons. The students look at the images, then listen to the teacher's pronunciation of the vocabulary and repeat it. The worksheet covers family member words such as Grandpa, Grandma, Dad, Mom, Cousins, Bother, SIster, Childer, Uncle, Aunt, and many more. 

• Family Speaking Cards - These simple speaking cards include a shortlist of questions about the family members. Students could be placed in small groups and take turns answering the questions.

• Family Elementary Worksheet - This worksheet leverages pictures to help build family and friends vocabulary, which is perfect for younger learners. It includes one matching activity along with a reading and comprehension assignment. 

• My Family Elementary Word Search - This fun word search centers around the family and includes: Mom, Son, Uncle, Father, Aunt, Brother, Daughter, Dad, Niece, Grandmother, Mother, Children, Sister, Cousin, Wife, Baby, Grandson, Soninlaw, Nephew, Husband

• Let's Talk about Family - This eight slide PowerPoint presentation is designed to allow your student to speak about their family. It contains questions about parents, siblings, and family activities.

• Family Members Quiz - This family member quiz is based on the famous Simpsons members of the Simpsons family members, making it easier for them to translate into their family structure.

• Family and Friends - This worksheet introduces words related to family and friends such as Friend, Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, and more. As a bonus, it also includes adjectives such as: Funny, Beautify, Handsome, Caring, and more. In the worksheet, the writer speaks about his friend, his mother (Queen Elizabeth), and his dad (Barack Obama).

Pre-Intemediate - Intermediate

Here a few worksheets for your pre-intermediate to intermediate students. In these worksheets, there are fewer visual aids and slightly more challenging activities intended to get your students to the next level.

• Family Wordsearch - A favorite of many students, this word search includes 21 family-related words. The words are aligned both vertically and horizontally. To make it a bit more challenging, some words are also aligned in reverse. The list of words includes mother, sister, Niece, Husband, Grandparents, Father-in-law, Uncle, Father, Grandmother, Nephew, Wife, Great-grandparents, Son, Aunt, Brother, Grandfather, Sibling, Family, Mother-in-law, Daughter, and Cousin.

• Let's Read and Write about: Family and Friends - In this worksheet, your students first need to read a short passage then answer a few questions on the topic. Some of these questions are in the true or false format, while others are short answer. Students are also required to write a few sentences about their families.

• Reading Comprehension & Vocabulary Exercise (Family Members) - This worksheet includes a passage that students need to complete but using the words found in the table. The worksheet also contains other reading comprehension exercises such as a True/False or Doesn’t Say and short answer questions.

• Parent's Day Letter Writing Assignment - Geared towards intermediate to advanced ESL students, this writing assignment guides students to write a thank you letter aimed at parents. It includes a brainstorming section with probing questions that allow students to express their feelings to their parents. 

Activities (Bonus)

While the worksheets we have included up to this point are great tools to allow students to build their family and friend related vocabulary, there are also tons of fun activities that can accomplish the same results. Using these activities, in conjunction with the worksheets mentioned above, would help fortify your learners’ vocabulary. These activities are targeted toward intermediate students. Let’s take a look. 

• Family Photo - This activity works better with a larger class. You would have your students bring one or more photos of their family members. They would then take turns sharing a bit of each of their loved ones seen in the photograph with the class. They would share how they are related to them and how each person in the photo is related. Students generally find this activity fun because they are talking about people that they love. 

• The Family Tree -  This activity works with both large classes or individual students. The student would draw a circle at the bottom of the page to represent themselves. If they have any siblings, they would also draw them in. They would then bring in their parents above them and show a relationship by connecting the two drawings with a line. Then they would similarly draw in their grandparents. This process would continue until the student no longer knows the information to add to the diagram. Each student would then take turns sharing a bit of each of their family members. 

• The Family Tree Interview - This activity works best with large classes. This activity is similar to the Family Tree activity mentioned above. The only difference is that the students would not be drawing their diagrams. Instead, the students would be divided into groups of twos and would interview each other to get enough information to draw their peers’ family tree. 

If you found these activities helpful, consider reading You’re Like Family to Me! 6 Simple Activities about Families