Friends
Friends
Friends at school
Are big and small.
Friends at school
Are best of all!
A
Circle of Friends
We've joined together
as classmates
as the new year
begins,
A year full of learning
while we become
friends.
We'll share and
be kind
as we work and we
play.
And our friendship
will grow
with each passing
day.
Friends is one of several themes that
I begin on the first day of school. Over the first two weeks, I integrate
our Friends unit with several other units, including All About Me, Back
to School, I Love My ABC's, A Rainbow of Colors, and our study of author
P.K. Hallinan.
You'll find lots of wonderful poems,
songs, stories, and activities on this page. You'll also see some
things that may look familiar from some of my other thematic unit pages,
because my units are tightly interwoven at the beginning of school.
I use some of these ideas early in the year, and others later on, carrying
the Friends theme throughout the entire year.
My
Teacher's My Friend
I begin every school year the same way,
whether I'm teaching first grade, kindergarten, or a K-1 multiage group.
I always begin our first story time with P.K. Hallinan's wonderful story,
My Teacher's My Friend.
It's short, friendly, and fun,
and talks about the things the kids have on their minds the first day of
school. As a bonus, it leads into a natural discussion about school
and this new person and friend in the childrens' lives, Mrs. Smith.
My
Teacher's My Friend
After we read the story, I tell the
children about me and my family, and let them ask questions. And
then we take some time to let each of the children introduce themselves
and share something they'd like us to know. To finish, I read the
story again, encouraging the children to help me with the rhyming words.
We'll revisit this book many times the first week of school, as we talk
about school and friends.
Our P.K. Hallinan study concentrates
on his books about school and friends, and about feeling good about oneself,
a recurring theme in most of P.K.'s books. On the first day of school,
I share the following poem with my students, setting the stage for the
many P.K. books on friends we'll be reading:
Friends
By Jill Eggleston
Friends care.
Friends share.
We need friends
Everywhere!
For more P.K. Hallinan titles, visit
my
P.K. Hallinan
Author Study Page
Follow
Up Activities
Language
Experience Charts
After reading
each book, discuss the ways that the "star" of the book could be a friend,
and make a chart of those traits.
For example, do
you have a brother? Is your brother your friend? What things
does your brother do that makes him your friend? This gets especially
interesting when discussing grandparents and all the neat things kids and
grandparents do together.
As you talk about
all the different people who can be our friends, compare the charts and
add to a separate chart that lists things that make kids friends with other
kids. Your students will come up with lots of great ideas!
I keep a basket
of yellow paper stars (cut with the Ellison machine) near our Shining Stars
bulletin board. When someone feels that another student has done
something special -- something that makes that student a good friend --
they take a star, write their friend's name on it, and staple it to the
board. Younger children may need help doing this. Older children
(first grade and up) can add a few words about why that person is a good
friend.
It's also very
interesting to listen to the reasons the children give why their doctor
or dentist is also their friend ("She helps me feel better when I'm sick,"
or "He makes sure my teeth are strong"). This discussion extends
naturally into a discussion of why other adults are our friends -- police,
firefighters, the principal, the man who drives the ice cream truck, etc.
Friends
Books
Kids enjoy writing
stories about their friends. Our first story might be an illustration
with a single sentence, telling who is in the picture and what the friends
in the picture are doing. I make paper available for the kids to
make as many single pages as they like about their friends, and we staple
them into construction paper folders. Some of the stories are displayed
on the walls.
We also use a
writing frame that says
"________ is
my friend because ________." We do the first page as a group activity,
with each child making their own page about anyone they like. Then
paper is set out in our writing area for them to make additional pages
during writing time and/or Literacy Centers. The kinderkids and some
first graders will need help filling in the blanks. More accomplished
writers can copy the sentence onto their papers and do their own writing.
We also use this
writing frame to make class books based on each of the friends books we
read. That way, we have our own books called My Teacher is My Friend,
My Father is My Friend, etc. The kids enjoy reading these, and reading
their friends' names.
Songs About Friends
If
You're Friendly and You Know It
If you're friendly and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're friendly and you know it,
clap your hands.
If you're friendly and you know it,
and you really want to show it,
If you're friendly and you know it,
clap your hands!
Friend
of Mine
(tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Will you be a friend of mine,
a friend of mine, a friend of mine?
Will you be a friend of mine
and (insert an action) around with
me?
_______ is a friend of mine,
friend of mine, friend of mine,
_______ is a friend of mine,
who (insert same action) around with
me.
Some Very Special Friends
Stories
Ira
Sleeps Over
A great story for emphasizing that
friends
can be different and still be friends,
and a read aloud favorite all year
long.
Also available as a book
& cassette set.
Follow
Up Discussion Questions For
Ira
Sleeps Over
How were the friends alike?
How were the friends different?
Did any of their differences change
during the story? How?
If a friend is doing something that
is different, but wrong
(like lying, stealing, cheating), should
we try to help them
or just let them be different?
If you are reading the story to first
grade or above,
use a graphic organizer -- like a Story
Web --
to map out the story elements (first,
next, last)
or to highlight character traits.
I like to read Pat Hutchins' story My
Best Friend after we read
Ira Sleeps Over,
and compare the two stories
(Ira is about boys and My Best Friend
is about girls).
We always have an interesting discussion
about the ways that boys and girls are the same and different, and how
there's a difference between having a friend who's a girl or boy and having
a boyfriend or girlfriend.
Different
Friends Song
(tune: Row, Row, Row Your Boat)
Love, love, love your friends,
Different as they seem.
Playing, laughing, joking, helping,
True friends are like a dream!
Make
a *Friends Can Be Different* Book
_______ likes to _______ but I don't,
and we are still friends.
_______ likes to _______ but I don't,
and we are still friends.
_______ likes to _______ but I don't,
and we are still friends.
I like to _______ but _______ doesn't,
and we are still friends.
Every
Buddy Counts
A Math Start Series Book
To shake off her sad mood,
a young girl counts all her friends.
Under $4
Follow
Up Activity
(from www.eduplace.com)
Make an Every
Buddy Counts Bulletin Board
Take photos of children playing, counting,
working, etc.
On one photo have one child, on the
next two children and so forth.
Take photos of children holding a different
number of objects.
This is a great reinforcement of the
counting concept.
Children love to see themselves in
pictures.
When you take the bulletin board down,
make a Big Book
with the pictures and add it to your
classroom library.
Best Friends Stories
Writing Frames
I make these up as blackline books,
for my students to illustrate. We keep them in their individual Book
Boxes for independent reading time. You could also have students
copy the words from a pocket chart to make their own books.
Before we do the writing activity below,
I share The
Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown.
The
Important Book
A children's classic story!
Under $5
The children never seem to grow tired
of this story and of making innovations on it into books. In my All
About Me unit, we make books where the children tell the important
thing about themselves. For this book, we tell the important things
about being a friend.
A
Friend
A friend likes to _______.
A friend will _______.
A friend can _______.
A friend never _______.
But the most important thing about
a friend is
that he/she likes me!
With
a Friend
With a friend I can slide.
With a friend I can hide.
With a friend I can walk.
With a friend I can talk.
I like my friend an awful lot.
I also make a class Big Book of With
A Friend,
with illustrations by the children.
We make LOTS of Big Books,
and usually two copies of each book
that we make,
so everyone gets a turn to be an illustrator.
Other Fun Things to Do
Pen
Pals & Key Pals
Kids can write to someone in their class,
an older Reading Buddy, or a penpal from across the country. If you'd
like to find pen pals or key pals (email pen pals), join one of the great
Internet Mailing Lists for teachers. You can subscribe to my KinderKorner
mailing list by sending email to kinderkorner-subscribe@onelist.com.
After you join, send a message to the
list
that you're looking for pen pals.
My classes have had pen pals and key
pals in New York, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.
Since we live in the California central valley, they were very impressed
with their New York friends, who had snow at school. They were also
very interested in hearing about the opposite seasons in NZ and Oz, where
it's hot and sunny on Christmas, and cold when we have our summer break.
You cannot give a smile away
No matter what you do.
Every time you give me one
I'll give it back to you!
~~~
I have a friend
Whose name is _____
And we have fun together.
We laugh and play
And sing all day
In any kind of weather.
~~~
I had a box of crayons,
All shiny, straight and new.
I lent a friend the red one,
And -- oops -- it broke in two!
My friend said she was sorry,
But I said "I don't care,
'Cause now we both can color
With one crayon -- we can share!"
Teacher Resources
Friendship:
A Complete Thematic Unit
from Teacher Created Materials
Under $8
Teaching
Children to Care:
Management
in the Responsive Classroom
An excellent resource for classroom
management
and teaching children values!
Looking for More Ideas?
My bookstore pages
have lots of information on how I use various materials in my classroom,
and on activities you can do with your students. The thematic pages
are complete unit resources, with lots of poems, songs, and links on each
page. Make yourself comfortable and take a look around!
Choose from the
categories below.
Underlined subjects
are links, the other ones are coming soon!
