Kids aren’t born knowing how to be good friends. Check out these fun activities to teach kids about friendship.
Why Teach Kids about Friendship
Little ones need guidance to do many things; walking, eating, and talking all require help and guidance. Interacting with other people and being a good friend also need to be taught. But how? There is no right way to teach kids about friendship.
Through interacting with friends, little ones can learn how to communicate, to problem solve, and to work together. Encourage your preschoolers to be a good friend by teaching them what it means to be a good friend. Below are seven great ways to teach kids about friendship.
Ways to Teach Kids about Friendship
Friendship Quotes
Have your kids learn friendship quotes. Start with something simple. Be sure to talk about what the quote means.
There are many different quotes from people and from books that encompass friendship. One of the most popular ones is The Golden Rule: “Treat others like you would like to be treated”. Another easy quote about friendship is, “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
Books about Friendship
There is no shortage of great books that show great friendships. A great book to start with that shows the give and take of friendship is Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry. Another wonderful book about friendship is How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends by Jane Yolen.
We have complied a list of books about friendship. Check out the whole list here.
Friendship Bracelets
Let your friends know you care about them by giving them a friendship bracelet you made. It’s super simple (and doesn’t require beads!). Here are the directions.
Friendship Role Play
What better way to learn to become a friend than by practicing? Role-playing is important to your preschooler’s development. By acting out different situations when your preschooler is put in a similar situation in real life he knows how to respond because he has already practiced.
Practice how to greet friends, invite people to play, what to do if you can’t play (or don’t want to), and how to show people you care about them. Role play what to do if someone is not being a good friend.
Friendship Videos
Many children’s shows show friendship and working together. Daniel Tiger from PBS is a great resource when it comes to showing preschoolers friendship videos. This Daniel Tiger video explains that friends have things that are similar and things that are different.
The PBS Kids website changes the videos on it frequently. Here is a link to the Daniel Tiger videos.
Friendship Songs
Kids love to sing songs. Singing songs helps kids to remember the lyrics. Talking about the lyrics helps your littles to know what they are singing about so they can put into practice what they are singing.
Try out Will You Be a Friend of Mine , Friends, Friends 123 , or one of the Daniel Tiger songs listed below:
Even When Friends Play With Someone New
A Friend Just Wants to Play with You
Friendship Games
Friendship Yarn Web
Have everyone sit in a circle. Take a ball of yarn and hold one end. Roll it to someone across the circle from you. Say what you like about that person. The person that now has the yarn and rolls it to someone else. Following the same pattern of saying something, they like about the person that caught the yarn ball. Continue until everyone has a piece of the web. You can “undo” the web and have kids say what they like about the person they are taking the yarn from (which happens to be the person that said something nice about them).
Friendship Musical Chairs
A twist on an old classic! No one gets eliminated in this version!
Have mats, towels, or chairs out for the number of kids you have (if you have five kids you would have out five mats). Play music and when the music stops have the kids get on one of the items you have out. Now take away one of the items. Everyone starts walking around the items when the music starts playing. When the music stops, everyone has to be on one of the items. This means that one of the mats will have two children on it. Continue to remove an item after each round. Watch as the kids problem-solve how to get everyone to fit on a tiny mat.
Teach Kids about Friendship
Social-emotional learning is an important part of growing up. Use some of these activities to help teach kids about friendship to help them become better friends.