TEACHING CHILDREN ABOUT FRIENDSHIP

Valentine’s Day is just a few hours away. Teaching children about friendship is part of many character education curriculums. Although young children often talk about their friends, they may not have an understanding of what a good friend actually is. Once you discuss characteristics and examples of being a friend, then you will want to do several activities so children can remember the qualities of friendship. You can also keep a list of characteristics of a good friend in your child’s bedroom and refer to these when you see them displaying one of them.

Role Playing - A great way to teach children about friendship is role play. You can give them a situation and a part to play in the scene. Then they act out how a "good" friend would act as opposed to a "bad" friend.

Friendship Chains - Another fun activity for children to participate in is making a friendship chain. First discuss with your child the qualities of being a good friend such as honesty, loyalty and trustworthiness. Next give him or her small strips of construction paper that can be easily made into a paper chain. On the strips of paper, students write the names of friends and then qualities this person has as a friend. Next, they make their own individual, short friendship chain.

Friendship Recipes - This activity can also start with a discussion on what makes a good friend. Once you have talked about it, you ready to make friendship recipes. On the Good Character.com website, a friendship recipe is described as "telling someone else how to be a good friend. Include the 'ingredients' of a friendship and the 'recipe' (steps) for being a good friend or making new friends." (References #2) For example, students could write as ingredients: 3 cups of trustworthiness, 1 tablespoon of humor, and so on. Steps for the recipe could be: Mix together trustworthiness and humor. Slowly add in loyalty. Let students read real recipes to get ideas for the friendship recipes. Once they have created their friendship recipes, they can copy them on poster board and decorate them for a friendship display or to share with a friend or the classroom.

To read more visit Activities to Teach Kids Friendship | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6500091_activities-teach-kids-friendship.html#ixzz1mDcVa3DB