Function of Friendship: To Love and Be Loved

As a teacher it never amazes me how I can come with a group time plan in mind and then the children present their own opportunities for learning and making connections!

For the past week I have been taking photos of the children that illustrated the three functions of friendship as identified by the children: to have someone to play with, to help and be helped, to love and be loved. The children's task was to stick the photos onto a web that organized their ideas.

The children initiated an opportunity to further understand an unexplored aspect of friendship: friends listen to each others ideas. My idea was to give the children a picture to stick, their idea was to express how they wanted to receive the picture "I want Simone to pass it to Bela and pass it to Sophia and give it to me" Everyone had an opportunity to express how they wanted to receive their photo and and to be listened to by their friends.

Sticking the photos onto the web

Deciding how to receive the photo for your turn

I picked the story "A Kiss For Little Bear" to illustrate how friends might show love to one another. I didn't expect the wonderful discussion amongst the children as they debated this idea.
"No kissing at daycare, right?" Rocco
"Only kisses at allowed at the big school." Simone
"No fair!" Rocco
"You can't kiss because germs will get on your lips, you can only kiss people in your family." Julia
"And in the big school too" Simone
"You can kiss at the playground." Julia
"Can friends kiss?" Wendy
"Yes!" Sofia, Esme, Bela

The hen passed the kiss to frog "Mmmmwah!"

The performance of A Kiss for Little Bear

After hearing the story the children made a puppet of one of the characters and acted out the play. The children initiated the idea to present the play again and invite the other children and a performance was held! Be prepared Debbie! This was a hit and the Fire Group would like to present more plays this week!