ENG
ARB
This activity is intended to aid in children’s understanding of friendship. Friendships are vital to school-aged children’s development. Friendships not only provide children with playmates, it helps children develop emotionally and morally. Interacting with friends helps children develop social skills such as sharing, communication, and problem solving. They also learn empathy and self-management skills. Research has shown that having friends positively impacts children’ school performance. On the contrary, children who lack friends may suffer from emotional and mental difficulties later in life.
There are two versions of the activity. The first version is meant for use with early elementary school aged children. The second version is for use with late elementary school aged children. After completing the activity, it is encouraged that students share their work with the class. They can discuss their reasons for choosing their color for the slime, and why the identified characteristics are important to a friendship. In addition, you can create a classroom survey/debate about which of the identified characteristics is the most important to a friendship and why. Start by listing all the identified friendship characteristics on the board/poster/chart paper, and give each
student a post it note. Have the students place their post it note under the characteristic they feel is most important. Tally the classroom votes and discuss.
