Creative Minds: Friendship: what does it mean?

When I asked the children what it means to be a friend, they focused on friendly things to say, like "you can play"; "no thank-you" ; "sorry" and " I am not allowed to share my snacks " and "do you need an ice pack?" Over the course of this unit we will explore the both the words and actions behind friendship.

In order to stir up some ideas about what it means to be a friend we read the book My Best, Best Friend by Lauren Child. It's a story about two best freinds Lola and Lotta, who do everything together, but when Lotta befriends a new girl named Evie, Lola feels as though she has lost her best friend Lotta forever. Alas, it wasn't true! Evie made a new friend in Charlie, and was still able stay friends with both Lola and Lotta !

I chose this book because we have a lot of new and returning faces at Creative Minds, and the children are trying to sort out how to make new friends and maintain their old friendships. After reading the story, I asked the children a few questions:

Is it okay to have more than one friend? Yes

Do you always play with the same friends? No

What do you do if you want to play with someone different? What do you say? What do you do with your body or your face? What would you look like?

Matthew: I just say, sorry, I'm not playing with you right now, but maybe later

Allye: I just say today I'm playing with Ryleigh, or something like that
Eva: I don't ever say anything like that, I just like to play

Zoe: If someone said that I think that would be mean

Nico: It's okay to play with whoever wants to play with me.

As a group, we started on our project to symbolize friendship and we began by decorating a canvas with their hand prints. We then discussed what to make out of the canvas? Elaine pointed to the heart on her shirt, and Matthew suggested a bus or a train because " it could hold a lot of friends." We will decide next week...