A friend, starting with you!

This lesson helps students learn about themselves and how good a friend they are to others. It helps children identify their own special talents and characteristics while showing the importance of good self-esteem in making new friends.

A lesson plan for grades K–5 Guidance

By Sara Smith

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Related topics

• Learn more about character education, friendship, guidance, hands-on, read-alouds, and self-esteem.

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Learning outcomes

Students will learn to identify their own positive character traits, friendship skills, and the special talents they possess. Through their self-awareness, they may improve their ability to make friends.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

45 minutes

Materials/resources

• The 329th Friend by Marjorie Sharmat
• paper and pencil
• raccoon puppet
• blank invitation for each student
• examples of an advertisements (magazine or newspaper)
• markers or crayons

Pre-activities

Define and discuss the following:

• self-esteem
• friendship
• special talents and skills (hobbies, unique abilities)
• personal characteristics & traits
• advertisement

Activities

1. Discuss friendship and its importance in our lives.
2. Read The 329th Friend.
3. Discuss how Ricky Raccoon went about making friends - his successes and his failures. Discuss the factors that influenced his self-esteem (including his newfound knowledge that he is an interesting person) and how self-esteem can affect friendships. Discuss how some friendships are born out of common interest and getting to know others through their special talents (like singing, sports, academics, etc.).
4. Tell students they are going to have a “lunch” for their potential friends. They are to send an invitation to new potential friends that includes information about themselves. The invitation will be like an advertisement of themselves (like a magazine selling a product). They should include at least three special talents or three positive characteristics they possess.
5. First, have the children make a list of three of their own personal characteristics and special talents (at least three of each). Have students help you make a “master list” to write on the board.
6. Next, have the children create an invitation or use a sample invitation to invite their potential friends over for lunch. Tell them they should “sell” themselves attractively. Use attractive sample advertisements as examples. (Invitation Example: Please come to lunch with a fun-loving, baseball-playing, caring kid!).
7. Finally, if time allows, have students decorate their invitation with crayons or markers.
8. Share the students’ invitations without their names and have the other students guess who they are. You can also have the other students add to their list of personal characteristics and talents.
9. Wrap up by encouraging the students to be friendly with others by using good talking and listening skills to learn more about each other.

Assessment

• Students will be able to identify at least three special talents they possess.
• Students will be able to identify at least three positive characteristics from their own personality.
• Teachers will observe students using their new friendship skills as they make new friends.

Supplemental information

Any other books, magazines, or cartoons on friendship.

Comments

Developing healthy friendships is important for our development and growth. We learn to cooperate and get along well with others, so that as adults we can enter the workforce with these necessary skills. This lesson would be good to use during a “friendship week.” An alternate lesson would be for students to write a descriptive paragraph about their “329th” friend.