If you are like me, then teaching your preschooler(s) to be a good friend is super important! I am always looking for new and fun ideas to get my class to discuss and practice being a good friend. This year we had fun with the following projects!
1. Friendship Story Boards
The kids can create friendship pictures and create and tell stories alone or with a friend!
You can see how I made these (and how my kids used them) here: http://lovepreschool.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/friendship-boards.html
You can see how I made these (and how my kids used them) here: http://lovepreschool.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/friendship-boards.html
2. Make Friendship Bracelets
This is a fun way to work on fine motor skills and talk about friendship. After having a conversation about being a good friend we all made a friendship bracelet to wear at school. Then the kids could make bracelets to give to friends or family! We had them out as a center option all week, and almost all the beads got used up by Thursday!
3. Buddy Paintings
The kids love to paint, but painting "with a friend" can be difficult for preschoolers (or anyone for that matter). We worked on sharing ideas, teamwork, cooperation, and creating something that we "may not have thought of on our own". While they were hesitant at first and asked if they could paint their own picture, they LOVED it in the end.
AND...they turned out beautiful! We made a whole wall of them in our preschool.
4. Create Friendship Rules
For me the important part is that these are kid-created! Their exact words go up there. I also really try to focus on things we "can do" to be a good friend, instead of things we "can't do". For example, we "can be nice" (instead of "don't be mean"). You can read my entire post for ideas on how to set up Friendship Rules in your school here:
http://lovepreschool.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/setting-up-rules-in-a-preschool-classroom.html
http://lovepreschool.weebly.com/1/post/2013/09/setting-up-rules-in-a-preschool-classroom.html
5. Make Friendship People
I talk about how I use these in my Friendship Rules post as well. But, they are cute and could be used in so many wonderful ways during a week on friendship.
6. Make Forever Flowers to Give to a Friend!
My preschoolers LOVED making flowers to give to friends. This was another great activity for fine motor skills (the kids had to fold the fragile tissue paper and separate the petals).
I pre-cut a bunch of tissue paper, and then went step-by-step with the kids for their first flower (for them to take home). Then they got to make as many as they wanted! This also became a center choice for the day. We sprayed a little perfume on our flowers when we were done just for fun.
The kids made my heart melt when they kept making flowers for me :) I had to bring out a vase to hold them all.