Bible Activity Book: Abraham's Descendants Family Tree FREE PRINTABLE!!

I havent had a chance to do it much since becoming a mom, but I LOVE genealogy! What I loved the most-other then stumbling upon strong Christians who had been major influences in the lives of those around them-was how it made history come alive for me. Somehow, understanding how their lives all wove together made them feel more real.

This drew me to want to make a family tree for Abraham and his descendants. We are getting ready to talk about Joseph and the coat of many colors, and I wanted the kids to understand that Joseph isnt some random dude in a new story-he is Jacob's son, and Isaac's grandson, and Abraham's great-grandson. I wanted to be able to show them how it was the same relation as our own great-grandparents. So I came up with a family tree printable to put into our Bible Activity Book.

We discussed the family of Abraham as Mustang and Charger cut out all 22 people.

I actually thought long and hard about what to do about the 'questionable' story of having Bilhah and Zilpah in the story. Should I leave them out, should I say they were wives, or what? I finally decided just to tell it like it is, figuring it would be more confusing to untell my made up story and explain why I had mislead the kids in the future. Turns out, the kids didnt even bat an eye.

I DIDNT go into the entire story of how Jacob worked for Rachel 14 years and the fighting between Rachel and Leah. I mentioned they were sisters, and that Bilhah and Zilpah were maid-servants and we just discussed how many kids each of them had. The Beginner's Bible that we follow leaves this story out completely, so I didnt want to get into it too much.

When it came time to glue all the people down, they were a little disappointed-apparently I'm going to have to make a second set for story telling. The little people ARE pretty darn cute.

In the end the project took a VERY long time-well over an hour. I wished I had thought of this earlier and added to the tree with each story. Oh well!

I used a file folder and glued Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Esau on the first page.

On the inside, we put Jacob again (file includes two Jacobs), Rachel, Leah, Zilpah and Bilhah, and all the kids. In case you dont want to look it up, place the following kids with their moms:

Leah-Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dinah, & Issachar
Zilpah (Leah's maid)-Gad & Asher
Rachel-Joseph and Benjamin
Bilhah (Rachel's maid)-Dan and Naphtali

I didnt worry about putting all 13 in order, as it would be confusing, but I did put the kids in order under their moms. I intend to have the kids refer to this tree in the future-and maybe even when they are a bit older, so I want some accuracy to the tree.

If you would like to make the family tree with your children or Sunday School class, it can be downloaded FREE here.  ****This link was updated as of 3/2/2014 to Google Docs***

All graphics used in this printable were purchased from Just So Scrappy or Digiscrapkits.com

I hope you enjoy the printable!!

God Bless!

BTW, yes it looks like I forgot Zeb!  So sorry!!  I am not likely to get a chance to fix it, I have gotten out of the printable making!