My class has struggled with friendship issues this year, so this month's topic is much needed. We talked about how having many different types of friends is important, because different people bring new ideas and experiences to your life. Real friends don't get mad or stop being your friend when you make a new friend. Our mentor's video helped create some discussion around these topics. Arianne challenged us to get to know each other better by learning two new things about a classmate and finding two things we have in common. Students used this Two Handprints graphic organizer to list 5 interesting things about themselves and then meet with a partner to learn new things and find common interests.
We watched the video, Kid President makes a New Friend. I thought it was very timely as it promotes getting to know a variety of people and embracing our differences.
In our lifetime, we will have many different types of friends: old friends, new friends, best friends, friends from the neighborhood, friends from far away, sports friends, gaming friends, school friends, family friends, and even furry friends.
Students made Friendship Trees that have names of friends on each leaf. I asked them to leave empty leaves for friends they haven't met yet.
We took advantage of the Valentine’s Day holiday to build each other up with positive comments. Each student was given a Friendship is Sweet page. They wrote their name at the bottom. Then students snaked through the classroom and wrote a positive comment on one line for each student.
By the end of the activity, each student had a page full of sweet comments from their classmates!
Finally, we watched the video, How to Disagree, by Kid President. He had some great advice on how to stay friends, even when you have different ideas and beliefs.
We are fortunate to have some public health nursing students in our school at the moment. They will be coming into my room at the end of the month to continue our lesson on friendship. I hope some of these ideas stick with my students. Thanks for a great topic!
No comments:
Post a Comment