Will you Be a Friend of Mine?

Tuesday October 7, 2014

What makes a good friend?  A good friend shares toys, plays with me; hugs me; kisses me, likes to have fun, likes to laugh but not laugh at me.

When I saw Damon coming in this morning with his mother I noticed he brought an incredible hulk lego action figure with him.  I requested that he bring it to grouptime today and he said yes.  We passed it around the circle

After we passed the toy around the circle we started our shared art experience.  Most times when children make their project, they are the only one who contributes to their art but today we "shared" our shapes portraits.  Each child painted a shape, I named the shape and colour and then they passed their paper onto the child beside them to paint the next shape.  Although each picture had more than 4 "shape interpretations", the most important thing is that the children were perfectly agreeable to having everyone else paint on their canvas !  Now that's friendship !




   




We concluded group with 2 friendship games.  The first was Hello My Friend.  A child in the middle of the circle is blindfolded and a mystery friend says "Hello, hello can you guess who I am?"  The child in the middle asks 3 questions to find out who this person is !  The questions ranged from are you a boy or a girl; what colour is your hair; do you have a sister; and did you have 2 ponytails.




The last song game we played is called 'Will You Be a Friend of Mine.'  The children walk around the circle and tap each persons head and when the song ends the child in front of you is your new friend.  Then the two new friends hold hands together and walk around the circle together.

Elaine chose Matthew as his friend

"Will You Be a Friend of Mine?"
(Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Will you be a friend of mine
Friend of Mine
Friend of Mine
Will you be a friend of mine
I'm so lucky

________is a friend of mine
Friend of mine
Friend of mine
________is a friend of mine
I'm so lucky



Thursday October 9, 2014

Today we began group with the "Will you be a Friend of Mine" song game, being sure to make eye contact and smile.  Then we added a new game played to the tune of B-I-N-G-O:

I have a very special friend and can you guess her name-o?
E-L-A-I-N-E
E-L-A-I-N-E
And Elaine was her name-o.

We went through each childs name, counted the letters in each name on our fingers and compared who had the longest name.

We ended todays group with another "all-friend portrait."  This time we painted a face with the focus on using the thumb and index finger to hold the paint brush with a clothes pin.   Many children hold felt pens and pencil crayons with all 5 fingers wrapped around in a tight grip.  We used clothes pins to exercise their little thumbs and index fingers ("pointer and thumbkin").  We opened and closed the pins and chirped as little birds before clasping the paint brushes.  If the child squeezed the pin too much the brush would fall out!  By the end, all of the children adapted and learned how to lighten their grip, relax their wrists, and use their thumb and index fingers to grip- we're working on the first step to writing!

Nico counting the letters in Elaine's name during the "B-I-N-G-O" game

Allye chirping like a bird 

Elaine using her thumb and index finger- chirp, chirp like a little birdie !

Allye removed the paint brush and held it with her thumb and index finger.  Elaine holds the paint brush using her thumb and index finger - wonderful !

Nico squeezed the clothes pin a little to hard so she had to re-insert the paint brush