Friendship: Summative Project

After 7 weeks of investigating How We Organize Ourselves and the role friendship plays in our lives the children are preparing for the final summative project to show what they've learned.

They've explored the qualities of a friend, what it means to be a friend and the importance of friends in their lives. They've also explored who and what can be a friend and how they know someone or something is their friend.


Rock Friends

Byrd Baylor's Everybody Needs A Rock was the catalyst to the final project. The children listened carefully to Byrd's 10 rules in selecting a rock and then chose the rock that was special to them. This week the the children are working on creating a friend in their rock and Deb will continue the process asking them specific questions that they will reflect on and respond to.

Friendship: A Friend Can Be . . .

Mem Fox's "Henwick's Egg" is about a little bandicoot who finds an egg that doesn't seem to belong to anyone. He takes it home and cares for it and soon the egg becomes his friend. Why did Henwick think the egg was his friend? Because the egg listened to Henwick's stories and when he shared his troubles. Soon Henwick figures out that the egg is actually a stone but he doesn't care, he loves it and it's his friend.

What Can Be A Friend and What Can't Be A Friend

The purpose of this activity was not to have our ideas be right or wrong but to think about our thinking.  The children looked at a variety of pictures; a baby, a teacher, a dog, a slide, a teddy bear, a tree, and I asked . . .

"Can this be your friend?"

"Why do you think this?"

It was interesting as the children identified their own criteria of what makes a something a friend.

"A dog can't be your friend because it can't smile, a teddy bear can be 

your friend because it's smiling" - Billy

"A tree can be your friend because it gives us apples." Michael

"A teddy bear can't be a friend because it can't talk" - Ryleigh

"A baby can be your friend because you can snuggle them" - Sofia

"A dog can be your friend because you can play ball with it" - Bela

"A slide can be a friend because I like it" - Chloe

Friends Criteria

they smile at me

they give me things

they talk with me

they snuggle me

they play with me

they like me

Friendship: Joining In

The story "Say Hello" by Jack and Michael Foreman is about two different approaches to joining in a game. A group of children are playing ball at the playground when a dog comes along and wants to play. At first the dog feels left out and lonely but then asks if he can play and joins in. Next comes a boy who wants to play. He feels left out and alone and watches and watches.

Tyreese had an idea "He forgot to ask!"

In the end the dog notices the boy standing alone and invites him to play and he joins in.

Joining a group of playing children is an important skill.
Why do you suppose the boy didn't ask if he could join in?
"He didn't think about it"
"He was scared"

Maybe he didn't know what to say. We played a game of Ring Around the Rosie with two people. The children practiced asking if they could join one by one.

Playing Ring Around the Rosy

"Can I play with you?"

Joining in!

Friendship: Is Sharing Easy or Hard?

Yesterday I asked the children what friendship means.

"Sharing"- Ryleigh

"Making bracelets" - Sofia

"Racing" - William

I used their ideas to plan todays group time. "The Best Gift of All" is a story that identifies friendship being the best gift of all rather than material things.

The children made bead bracelets. As they exercised hand-eye co-ordination and focused on stringing the tiny beads I asked if they would share their bracelets or keep them. At first everyone except Tyreese said they would keep their bracelets. After a reminder that sharing is different than giving away they decided they would share their bracelet.

Who will you share it with?

My little brother - Bela

My brother - Michael

My mom and my brother even though he's mean to me - Ryleigh

My dad - Billy

My sister - Chloe

Later in the day, I noticed that some chose to share with other children at school.

Is sharing hard or easy?

The children reflected on this and had 4 choices; easy, hard, a little bit easy or a little bit hard 

A little bit hard - Bela and Ryleigh

A little bit easy - Billy and Chloe

Easy - Tyreese

Hard - Michael

Friendship: Sharing

   Based on our discussions these past few weeks I can hear that 

the children have definite expectations about friendship.

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister lends itself well to discussing the expectation that friends share. Rainbow Fish refuses to share his shiny scales and uses unkind words when asked and tells the little fish to get away from him.  After some discussion the children decided that Rainbow Fish should share but if he's not going to he still needs to be nice "because friends should be nice to each other"

Sharing Poster

The poster consists of a picture of themselves with a talking bubble and a fish. They used paint to make thumbprint scales. 

In the story, Rainbow Fish sought advice from wise octopus but for our posters I asked the children to imagine if Rainbow Fish came to them for advice - what can you tell Rainbow Fish about sharing?

Sofia - Give away your shiny scales because friends share.

Ryleigh - You have to share with friends because some
girls like shiny things.

Chloe - You should share.

Tyreese - I don't know what I would tell him.

Micheal - Share your scales or else the other fish will be sad.

Bela - You have to share your shiny scales or else it's not fair.
                                                                   But you don't have to share if you only have one.

Friendship: Little Red Hen

Throughout the day the teachers are helping the children recognize their acts of friendship. 

Children helping each other is one we often see.

human graph

I posed a question to the children and we made a human graph to organize their responses.

"Should friends help each other?"

It was unanimous - all agreed friends should help each other

Everyone helping Little Brown Owl

Finding the text "Not I"

But what happens when friends don't help each other? On Monday the children heard the story of the Little Red Hen and had mixed feelings about whether the Little Red Hen should have shared the bread. They re-enacted the story, changing some of the details. Everyone chose an animal to be in the story and when they were asked if they wanted to help the Little Brown Owl everyone said no until William replied yes. As the story progressed the children decided that their character would help when asked and in the end everyone helped Brown Owl grow, pick and roast sunflower seeds and everyone ate them together!

On Tuesday everyone shared the work of baking bread. They mixed, kneaded, and shaped their own little loaf of bread.

Friendship: Our Beginning Knowledge

Listening to a story about friends

What does friendship feel like?

Last week Debbie helped the children identify who was their friend and what they liked to do with friends. On Monday we discussed this further and the children created a long list of activities they enjoy doing with their friends. When I asked "What does friendship feel like?" they identified several feelings; happy, mad, silly, angry, fun, sad. After selecting what colours they needed everyone painted a picture that reflected how friendship feels to them.

Friendship feels like . . .

Can you find your name?

Friends Have Names
The children will work closely together this year and knowing each other's names is important. A lift-the-flap game gave the children an opportunity to read their names and to read the names of the children in the Fire Group. "Who's Under The Blanket" is another game where the children had an opportunity to recall each other's names.

Who's under the blanket?

Can a dog be a friends?
Today's story of a boy and his dog prompted a discussion amongst the children when I asked "Can a dog be your friend?"
"Of course!" - Bela
"No they can't, if you have something your hand they might bite you." - Ryleigh
"Or break things" - Billy
"A dog can be your friend because you can pet them." - Sofia
"That makes no sense." - Bela
"Well you can run together." - Sofia
"Well of course a dog can be your friend. Friends can't be a part of your family" concluded Bela