Many of my students are new to each other this year so to help them become more familiar with each other, Mrs. Courtney and I spent a little more time on helping the children get to know each other…
We started our discussion on friendship by taking a picture walk through our Clifford Magazine by Scholastic and today’s topic was on different ways we can make friends…
After reading our Clifford magazine, we invited the children to make friendship bracelets. To prepare for our friendship bracelet activity, Mrs. Courtney and I cut up straws into small pieces and put each color in a different baggie along with a pipe cleaner….
Each child chose one baggie of straw beads and were then invited to share their color of beads with the other children so that everyone could make a bracelet with all the different colors…
Some of the children were very comfortable asking others if they could please have one of their beads to add to their bracelet. Other children were not so comfortable asking and needed Mrs. Courtney and I to help them do the asking. But every child was happy to share their beads with anyone who asked…
In the end, we didn’t worry about whether every child made a bracelet that had all the colors and neither did the children…
Instead, we let the children interpret this process in a way that they enjoyed or understood…
Some children were very interested in collecting a bead from all the other children and some children just preferred making a pattern or using only their favorite color of bead…
Regardless of how the children chose to make a bracelet, this process did encourage the children to talk to each other and to spend a few minutes sharing and helping each other along the way…
Thank You!
I want to give my friend Wendy Young over at Kidlutions: Solutions for Kids Spin-Doctor Parenting a big thank you for sharing this idea with me! Since my class definitely put their own “spin” on this idea – be sure to stop by Kidlutions to see the Friendship Bracelet Tutorial!
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