This All About Me KS1 History scheme of work is a great way to introduce your Year 1 class to the concept of 'history'. By focusing on the people and events in their own lives, children will begin to: 

• Understand chronology 
• Explore how they are linked to the special people in their lives 
• Compare their own childhoods with those of their grandparents 
• Read, interpret and create timelines to show events in their family history.

Perfect as an introductory History scheme of work at the beginning of the year, this ready-to-teach KS1 All About Me History lesson pack provides everything you need to get your Year 1 class excited about history. By teaching them key foundational skills in a context that is familiar and accessible, your children will soon be ordering events chronologically, identifying historical sources, comparing and contrasting time periods and lots more! And with everything prepared and provided, including lesson plans, slideshows for the teaching input, differentiated activities for adaptive teaching and a wide range of printable resources, everything you need to deliver these lessons can be yours in a few quick clicks, saving you hours of planning time.

A Knowledge Organiser is available to support the learning in this scheme. It is included in the Complete Series download or can be purchased individually.

Why not upgrade to our All About Me Topic Bundle – perfect if you're looking for a cross-curricular approach to your teaching.

Ordering Events

The first lesson in this series introduces your KS1 class to the term 'history' and starts by identifying that history refers to anything that has happened in the past, whether yesterday or thousands of years ago. It then goes on to identify some key events your Year 1 children will have experienced in their lives so far and challenges them to order them chronologically, using time language to support them.

During their independent learning activities (which are differentiated for adaptive teaching), children will work independently to order events in their lives. In the alternative activity, children work together as a class to create a human timeline to show when each child in your class was born!

This lesson pack provides all the resources you need to deliver this lesson, including an easy-to-follow lesson plan, slides for the whole-class teaching input, differentiated activities ideas and a range of child-friendly printable resources.

View Lesson 1

What is a Family Tree?

Your Year 1 class will discover what a family tree is in this lesson as they explore the family trees of a variety of fictional children and familiar fictional characters. The whole-class slideshow for the teaching input goes through a carefully crafted explanation of what a family tree is and how they link different members and generations of families together.

Once your class understand the concept of a family tree and have a clearer idea of how different family members are related to each other, they can then work independently to express this knowledge by organising people onto differentiated family trees from a given set of statements. Alternatively, they can answer questions about the family trees of some familiar characters from films and TV!

This fun and engaging lesson comes fully prepared with a plan, slideshow, differentiated activity ideas and a range of printable resources to support children's independent learning activities.

View Lesson 2

My Family Tree

This lesson starts by exploring exactly what a family is and emphasising that every family is special and unique, and that there is no right or wrong way to be a family. The included slideshow presentation then shows several different family trees so that children can recap their understanding of how family trees work and how people within a family are, or can be, related to each other. It also show the example of a 'special people' tree, which demonstrates how sometimes the people in our lives who are most important to us aren't necessarily those we are related to.

The children then have the chance to either create their own family or special people tree, drawing on what they have learnt. A range of different activities are suggested to support this.

View Lesson 3

Our Grandparents' Childhood

This lesson moves on to investigate how childhood was different for our grandparents compared to childhood today. The whole-class slideshow introduces your Year 1 class to grandparents who experienced childhood in the 1950s and 1960s. It highlights some of the features of this time period, such as relatively new inventions like TVs and household appliances, as well as challenging children to think about how we can use historical sources to find out what life was like in the past for older members of our families.

During their independent learning time, children can then use what they have learnt to sort statements that describe childhood in two different time periods. Alternatively, they can explore pictures of objects from the 1950s and 1960s, and objects today, comparing and contrasting what they can see.

This lesson comes fully prepared to deliver to your class, including a lesson plan, slideshow presentation, activity ideas to support adaptive teaching and a range of printable resources.

View Lesson 4

My Family Timeline

The final lesson in this series starts with a quick quiz to recap some of the key learning points your Year 1 class has covered throughout the previous lessons. It then moves on to bring together what they have learnt to create a timeline of their family history. The slideshow presentation recaps what a timeline is and how they work before exploring the terms 'living memory' and 'beyond living memory'.

After looking at some examples together, children can then create their own family timelines by ordering key events in their family's history chronologically. Alternatively, they can sort statements into true or false piles based on the faily timelines provided to assess their understanding.

The scheme of work is then rounded off with an End of Unit Quiz.

View Lesson 5

This Year 1 History Knowledge Organiser has been created to complement our History 'changes within living memory' strand. It is designed to support your children’s understanding of key vocabulary linked to this scheme of work. Enquiry questions have been included to encourage your children to think like a historian within this topic.

View Knowledge Organiser