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The Write Stuff Teaching

Helping Teachers Inspire Learners

Teaching Friendship Skills

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Friendship skills and kindness are foundational social and emotional skills. Many aspects of friendship skills don’t develop naturally and need to be taught explicitly and regularly. It’s not something that can be taught just using happy resources, it takes lessons on self-awareness, acts of kindness, and more. Even knowing this, do our kids really know how to spot a good friend and be a good friend? This post is about learning and using friendship detective skills to find a good friend and be one too!

Teaching Friendship Skills blog post

The Importance of Teaching Friendship Skills

Based on everything I see in the classroom and everything in our communities surrounding kindness, I knew that it was time for a comprehensive look at teaching kindness and friendship. Friendship activities in preschool are common but as kids get older, the teaching of friendship seems to decrease. I decided to compile everything I have heard and learned through the years about friendship skills and kids and put together a resource that would really help kids understand what a good friend is and help teachers teach it! A true friend.  Even after teaching kids all year about friendship and sharing, kids still have difficulties dealing with certain situations because they just may not have learned what to look for in a friend. I broke this down into What is a good friend?   How to recognize a good friend. How to BE a good friend.

 

A Resource to Use All Year Long

I wanted a set that I could use all year long –  not just for Valentine’s Day. Even for Valentine’s Day, I wanted kids to understand that friendship is not something that is earned through chocolates and gifts. Friendship is earned through kindness, understanding, and honesty.  I do love to have a little Valentine’s Day party and activities. It’s also important to frontload the understanding that friendship takes work. Where I teach, it is also anti-bullying month. It’s very important to teach kids about bullying but it’s equally as important to teach kids about positive social skills. Learning to develop the confidence to recognize what a good friend is can be very helpful for students.

Let’s look more closely at the important friendship skills students will learn:

★ What is a Friend?
→ What is a friend? (reading)
→ Friendship mat to sort out positive and negative traits
→ Can you spot a good friend? (writing and drawing activity)
 
★ How to recognize a good friend
→ Mini teaching poster set:
→ What good friends look like (Color and B & W)
→ What good friends sound like (Color and B & W)
→ Character traits of a good friend
→ Good friend flipbook
→ Good friend vocabulary (color hearts and black and white and
suitable for pocket charts.)
 
★ How to BE a good friend
→ Friendship game (full color)
→ Create your own (B & W) friendship game
→ Friendship/Valentine’s Day notes of kindness
 
★ Create a lap book of friendship skills with real examples from your students on how to recognize a true friend and how to be one too. (Lap book can be used for back-to-school, Valentine’s Day or end-of-the-year activities.)

What You Will Get With This Set

Lessons, Games, and Worksheets

In this set, friendship skills worksheets will help students to read about what a good friend is and then sort character traits on a good friend/not a good friend mat.  (This can be a great center activity too.)

 Once students have learned about what a friend is, and what to look for, they will play a friendship game.  Print this game in full color or black and white.  This game is simple to play and includes cards that students will draw as they play and answer the question. The questions are personal questions that help each player get to know the other better. (ex. What is your favorite hobby?)  I have included a different-looking black-and-white version also for kids to create their own game.

Friendship Lessons and Games

Friendship Vocabulary and Flip Book

Kids will have writing activities and will create a nice friendship skills flip book.  These friend traits came from years of students telling me what they thought made a good friend. I couldn’t agree more. Learning should be authentic.

Friendship Vocabulary and Flip book

Easy to Assemble Friendship Lapbook

This lapbook can be completed in stages as students learn more about friendship. All of the lessons and reflections they have done can be glued into this kid-friendly lapbook as a look at what they have learned or possible as a way to extend their thinking.

Friendship Skills Lapbook

Posters

There are mini posters (and black and white versions too to save ink) on what a good friend looks like and sounds like. All too often, kids learn the “facts” about friendship but can’t recognize them and see them on the playground, in the classroom, or in the community/neighborhood.

 
Friendship skills posters
 

 

Friendship Detectives Blog Post

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Teaching friendship skills will help your students with positive social skills. If you would like to do more with self-awareness you might like this post on mindfulness. You will likely notice an overall calmness in your classroom as they learn these skills.

  • Shelley The Write Stuff Teaching
  • « Valentine’s Day Kindness Ideas
    Structured Literacy and Balanced Literacy »

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