Friendship Frog is one of the nine Characters of Character. With school on the horizon, I thought this might be helpful when teaching children about being a friend, what friendship means, and some ideas to implement into your day regards to Friendship Frog.
I love reading a story to engage the kids in, this exposes them to literacy, pictures, language and discussions on friendship. Let’s Be Friends is a good book to start with. The Friendship Frog Resource Book is my favorite because there are so many great ideas to do in this fun filled book which I’ll share below. While I was on the Reading Team, a favorite of mine was teaching Guided Reading through Fountas and Pinnell’s.
Here I was able to incorporate the characters, teaching social skills, communication skills and literacy. After reading a story and discussing what it means to be a friend, I made a large chart. The top reads, Friends Can… first I wrote on the top line,
Friends can________ together. in a green marker/crayon and wrote a second line using a different color. This makes it easier for the children to separate sentences. At the end of the sentence in parentheses I wrote the child’s name. Make enough lines so each child gets a chance to answer the question of Friends can….alternating colors. Use solid black to write their answer on the line of the sentence. Soon you now have a chart of Friends Can….from each child. If you have a large class or family, you can split this activity into two days. I always kept this chart up with the Friendship Frog pointer and the children would come up through the week to point and read their sentence. (you can make a pointer of choice, it’s a nice tool to touch read the sentence)
Once the chart is completed allowing each child to give an answer, have them come up one by one to touch read their sentence using the pointer. The first child’s name in the parentheses comes up and the children need to pay attention to see who is next. Next, I typed out each sentence in large font and used double space to separate words, cut the words out placing the child’s name on top and paper clipped this together. Put this on a table, allow the child to come find their sentence by locating their name, have them place the sentence on paper and read it to you. Once the words are in place they can then glue them down. Now let them draw the picture to go with their sentence. Finally, you can make a traveling book by using all the pages, or, you can file them to use during conference time to show progress of the student.
The Friendship Frog Bulletin Board Book and Poster is a great way to engage the children into making the visual bulletin board, if it’s on a door or a wall, they will see it and be reminded what it means to be a friend. The posters can be laminated and used as they are as posters, or, use as signs for your centers, place on a yard stick and use as a visual to get in line for transitioning. The possibilities are endless with these Characters of Character!
Inside the Friendship Frog Resource Book are many different templates to help teach friendship to children. This is the Table of Contents
Section One: Introducing Friendship Frog
Section Two: ‘I Am’ Book
Section Three: Stationary For The Teacher
Section Four: Making New Friends
Section Five: My Best Friend
Section Six: Friendships At Home
Section Seven: Friendships With Respectable Community Members
Section Eight: Friends Are Honest
Section Nine: Accepting Friends
Section Ten: Friendly Letters
Section Eleven: Friendship Frog Holding A Pencil
Section Twelve: Black And White Posters
Section Thirteen: Various Worksheets
Section Fourteen: Incentives, Evaluations, And Notices Home
Section Fifteen: Journal Ideas And Writing Prompts Page 143-151
The I AM BOOK pages 9-20 are a reproduction of the large book available called I Am Character stories https://www.amazon.com/Am-Character-Stories-Joni-Downey/dp/1523639377/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1502809331&sr=8-4&keywords=joni+j+downey
This allows the child to create their own book on friendship. The stationary for the teacher makes a great way to link school and home and continually have this character trait visible. Use this for newsletters, spelling words, sight words, etc. There are many suggestions on what to do in each section of the book as well as ideas to help you easily implement them into the day. Once the children learn about Friendship Frog you’ll notice friendly conversations throughout the day. Please read some of our testimonials as they mention this and how these characters helped to improve the school climate and culture, which is one reason they earned a National Promising Practice Award. Each section also has character stationary, not only to encourage letter writing to the character (hint, hint, S.A.S.E.) but also use when learning to write a letter, write your name, write a sentence, write spelling words or sight words. Remember to yellow road these if needed. Using the stationary is another visual reminder to be a friend. All of our books are available on different outlets and range from $6.00 to $19.00 I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
What is the old cliché’, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin,
These my friends, are words to live by.
http://charactersofcharacter.org/index.php/our-characters/