A Celebration of Friendship!

Friendship Party

Right from the morning the children were very excited for the friendship party! The morning was spent hanging balloons and preparing pancakes. Everyone helped to stir and mix and decorate, it was so hard not to lick fingers!

mixing

icing

sprinkles
After all the co-operation of preparing the party the other children were invited! Simone, Rocco, Julia and Sofia made the announcements and the party began!

communicating about the party

Everyone enjoyed the chocolate sprinkled pancakes and then danced to some Latin music

sharing food

dance fun!

Friendship Skill: Co-operation

Co-operation is an important skill in friendship but what does that word mean?

"To help!" - Simone

"To care!" - Rocco

This is the last week of inquiry for this unit and to celebrate the Fire Group is planning a party to celebrate friendship! Sofia had lots to say about party's since she's just had a birthday party. We made a list of the things we'd need

cake

decorations

balloons

music

dancing

To plan and organize a party takes a lot of co-operation! Who will come to the party? Well ... the Fire Group of course! We made a friendship chain with everyone's name to show who is invited to the party. Sofia suggested we invite her brother and the other's agreed that everyone should be invited to the party. The worked hard with each other to continue the chain with everyone's name taking great care that no one was left out....peeking in at the other groups to check who's there.

Co-operation

Afterwards an announcement was made that a Friendship Party will be held tomorrow and everyone's invited. The children all came to find their name on the friendship chain and were thrilled at being included!

Holding the friendship chain

Child's Question

Child's Questions:

Can a stuffie be a friend?

The children shared stories of the special stuffed animals they have at home and noted that while they had many.... "I have hundreds!" (Simone)..... "I have millions and millions in Trinidad!" (Rocco).... everyone shared a description of the ones that were most special to them.

We played a song game "Daddy Loves the Bear" where everyone took turns holding a very special bear from Creative Minds that has been with us for more that 16 years! We substituted our names in the song...

Daddy loves the bear, 

Daddy loves the bear,

Daddy loves the bear and takes it everywhere.

Julia noted that she is not allowed to take her special giraffe blanket everywhere and often has to leave it at home.

Reading a chart
The children charted their response to the questions "Can a stuffie be your friend" and practised reading their names and how to use rows and columns on a chart to find the spot for their sticker goes. Everyone agreed that a stuffie can be your friend and when asked why some responses were

"Because they're soft"

"Because they're special"

"Because I love them"

Everyone took a moment to draw a picture of their favourite stuffie. Simone was hesitant, thinking she couldn't draw stuffed animals but was a risk taker and tried and was pleased with her results. Julia took her time carefully drawing her giraffe blanket checking for details and colours so her picture matched. Alfie is very much into drawing letters right now and helped Bela write his name noting he was very good at making l's.

"I'll help you write your name!"

Paying attention to detail

Wanted: Best Friend

At the beginning of the unit Oga, the Hobbit, asked the children how she could get a friend. Today she came and asked again to check for growth in the children's understanding....

Oga the Hobbit

The children made two lists to help Oga understand:
If you want to be a friend...

• be caring (Pauline)
• no punching (Julia & Lysander)
• take care (Orin)
• no pushing (Alfie)
• no kicking (Rocco)
• play princess (Tai)

Adding our ideas to the list

If you don't want to be a friend...

• don't care (Rocco)
• be away (Pauline)
• don't play (Esme)
• don't play at the park (Sofia)

The children added other ideas to the "don't list but after some thought and discussion they came to the conclusion that even if you don't want to be someones friend you still should never

• kick
• bite
• push
• trip
• punch

After reading the story "Wanted: Best Friend" the children helped to create a board game that helped a boy reach the end of the path to find his best friend. On the squares were the children's ideas of what we need to do to be a friend (move one space forward) and what doesn't help us be a friend (move one space back)

Self Assessment: Sharing Ideas in Friendship

A common conflict that I have observed children needing adult support with is when one person is too controlling in a game and the other person doesn't get to add their ideas.

I used puppets to tell a story of two situations, one where one person is too controlling and another where both characters get to add their ideas. The children articulated what kind of feelings they observed in the characters.

I drew faces on their little fingers and they took turns re-enacting these two scenarios.

What it looks like when we share ideas.

What it looks like when we don't share ideas

After watching a short video of Franklin Is Bossy the children reflected on how it feels when someone is too bossy in a game and how often they include the ideas of others in play.

self assessment

Creative Minds is a Fighting-Game-Free Place

Responsibility is a concept the children are exploring in depth this unit.

A learning opportunity has come up recently that is helping the children to deepen their understanding of rights and responsibilities. In the past several weeks many children have been engaging in fighting-themed games, especially in the forest, the result is that some children are feeling scared by the aggressive actions in the games or are feeling upset at being "shot"at or being identified as the "bad guy".

This morning the teachers and the children had a big meeting in the forest. The children all agreed that everyone at Creative Minds has a right to feel safe. I explained that the fighting games were interfering with people's right to feel safe. There are 4 teachers who care for (and play with) the 25 children as they move through their day.  If this type of play were to continue we would need more adults to help them learn the skills they need to play safely and respectfully of everyone's feelings and needs.

Everyone has a right to feel safe so we have asked the children to save the fighting-themed games that have pretend weapons or fighting actions, for play time at home where their parents can help guide them and be mindful of that play. The children agreed to keep Creative Minds a fighting-game-free place.

Today as we left the woods Aiden said to me "Thank you Wendy" (referring to the "everyone has a right to feel safe talk") I asked him, "Did you feel safe in the forest today when there weren't any fighting games?" and he smiled and said "Yes!"

Our Responsibility in Friendship

The Expectations of Friendship 

The three concepts for this unit are function, responsibility and connection. Many of the children have retained an understanding of the concept function, today we focused on the meaning of responsibility.

When you're finished playing with toys, what's your responsibility?

"To clean them up!" Simone

When your mom says go to bed, what's your responsibility?

"To go to sleep" Sofia

When we think of friendship, if we expect our friend to play with us, to help us, and to be kind then what's our responsibility?

I used the story "Hello" as a launching point - the children looked at a picture of a group of children playing Ring Around the Rosie and coloured of the children they imagined was themselves. We played the game and then read the story till it came to the part where there is a boy left out. What's he thinking? wanting? feeling? What should happen in this situation? What would YOU do if you were a child in the group - what's your responsibility?

Choosing a character

This brought up a question by Rocco "What if I don't want to play with my friend?" (when they ask me) Wanting to play on your own or with someone else is okay, but we have a responsibility to deliver the message in a kind and caring way. How could this sound? "I don't want to right now but I'll play with you later" "I'll play with you when I'm finished this game."

Noticing someone is left out

Being left out makes me sad

"Would you like to join us?"

The children recognized they should include the boy in the story and thought of some words

"I'm sorry we left you out."

"Would you like to play?"

Simone added that the boy had a responsibility to ask if he could play "Can I play too?"

Drawing how it feels to be included

How did it feel to be included? Happy! Good! Nice! The children drew pictures of images that felt happy, good, and nice to represent how they felt when they were included in the game