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Being a Friend in Deed

Which of the suggested responses best reflects the qualities of a friendly person?


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Suggested Activities

In this challenge, students learn to support others who are upset or have been slighted. Identify and gather pictures (from trade books) that show typical situations where students are in an upsetting situation (e.g., someone is hurt on the playground, students are playing a game and one student is obviously left out, two children are fighting or obviously angry with one another). (A search of GoogleTM Image Search for "child hurt on playground" or "child left out at school" will produce hundreds of colour prints.) Choose a scene to model with the class. Ask the class to first suggest what they think is happening in the selected picture and what someone might do to help make the person in the picture feel better. Record student responses on a chart. Ask students to think how they know when someone is being a friend: "What does it look like when someone is being friendly to me?" Return to the list of responses to the situation in the picture and decide which of their suggestions best shows the qualities of a friendly person. See Learning to Be a Friend (Modelling the Tools) for detailed suggestions on how to teach and assess the tools for thoughtful consideration of this question.

For additional practice, place students in small groups with several pictures of upsetting situations and ask them to suggest several possible responses and then select the most friendly response they could make to each situation. Encourage students to apply the lessons learned about friendly responses to an actual incident at school or home and share it with the class as part of sharing time.

Adapted from I Can Make a Difference, edited by Mary Abbott, Roland Case and Jan Nicol (Richmond, BC: The Critical Thinking Consortium, 2002), 27–34.

Last updated: July 1, 2014 | (Revision History)
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