What is a Friend?
Standards: Content Standard Social Studies Standard C (Political Science and Citizenship)
NCSS:
· Create opportunities for learner participation in activities to strengthen the “common good.”
· Have learners compare and evaluate the impact of stereotyping, conformity, acts of altruism, discrimination, and other behaviors on individuals and groups.
MMSD:
· Describe how family members and friends provide for needs of love and respect.
· Exhibit group membership traits by being trustworthy, responsible, respectful, and by demonstrating accountability for actions, displaying self direction and showing pride.
UW Madison Teacher Education:
· Standard 10: Employs Varied Instructional Strategies – In this lesson the students will be exploring what a friend is through brainstorming and creating art to represent friendship.
· Standard 11: Uses Technologies – Students will be putting words into wordle to see what words most commonly come up for what friendship means.
Materials Needed:
Do You Want to Be My Friend? By Eric Carle
Computer
Butcher paper
Paint
Objectives:
Students will be able to describe the qualities of a good friend by creating lists of qualities with a partner.
Students will be able to recall parts of a story by picking out the qualities of a friend that are listed in the book Do You Want to Be My Friend? By Eric Carle.
Students will be able to work together and be responsible for their space while making their handprints on the rainbow.
Lesson Context:
Students have been working on building community within the classroom for a few days/weeks. Now we are going to discuss how to care for our community by being friends and caring for one another. First we need to understand what a friend is and how they influence our lives.
Lesson Opening:
Have students come to the rug and discuss what wordle is and how it takes all of the words that we think of and makes a really neat picture of them. However, some words are bigger than others if they are words that we think of a lot when we think of the topic. So today we are going to create a wordle about friends.
Procedures:
Have the students’ pair up with a neighbor and a piece of paper and have them list qualities of a friend. Because they are in first grade encourage them to draw pictures if they need to. After five minutes have the students come back as a group and tell them that you will type up all of the words that they listed into wordle. Show them the picture when you are done.
Read the story Do You Want to Be My Friend? By Eric Carle. Discuss mouse’s search for a friend and all the different qualities that he found in each friend. Were they the same as the qualities that we listed previously? Add new ideas or words to wordle.
We’re going to make a friendship rainbow to hang outside of our classroom to show everyone that we are a classroom of friends that work together. Lay out the butcher block paper and have flat trays filled with paints that are the color of the rainbow.
Discuss what order the rainbow colors go (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet). Have students pick two colors and paint each hand the color of their choice. Outline a rainbow on the butcher block paper and write the name of the colors in pencil on each row. Have the students make their handprint on the color that matches their hand.
Title the rainbow with whatever fits you and your class best. Hang the rainbow out in the hall along with the wordle image for all to see the friendship and cooperation that goes on inside these doors.
Closure:
Discuss that friendships are not based on shape or size or color because we are all unique but they are based on trust and cooperation.
Assessment:
Informal: Listen to students list of qualities of a friendship to determine if they have a healthy view of friendship.
Informal: Discussion of what are important aspects of a friendship and whether or not it should be about physical traits or emotional traits.
Informal: Watch students work together while painting the rainbow with their hand prints.
