February Friends Lesson Plan

What We Are Learning

friendship

friends, sharing, caring

group discussion, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, critical thinking, letter recognition

In My Friends by Taro Gomi, a girl explains what she’s learned from her friends, including butterflies, books, and ants. After reading, guide children in sharing what they’ve learned from each other!

Let’s Move Together!

Materials: none

Not only does this game reveal common interests, but it’s a fun gross-motor and memory challenge.
Have children stand in a circle. Choose a child to say their name and one of their favorite things to do: “My name is ____ , and I like to _____ .” Then have them do movement to match. For example, they might say, “My name is Sam and I love to swim,” while pantomiming swimming. The rest of the class will then say, “Let’s swim with Sam,” and copy the motion.
Then the next child in the circle will share one of their favorite things to do. (If possible, encourage students to choose different activities for variety.) The class will echo back, “Let’s ____ with ____ ,” incorporating the child’s favorite activity and motion. The class will then repeat what they said for the first child (“Let’s swim with Sam”) and repeat their motion. Continue adding each friend until you’ve incorporated everyone in the class.
When the game ends, ask, “Did anyone say a favorite thing that is also one of your favorite things? Was anything mentioned that you have never tried but would like to?” gross-motor skills/community-building

Materials: black construction paper, colored chalk, cotton balls, thick paper (such as card stock or file folders), tape

This easy project isn’t just great for developing fine-motor skills—it also produces beautiful valentines!
In advance, cut out heart shapes from thick paper to make stencils.
Show children how to trace stencils. Place the heart stencil on the black paper. (You can attach a few small pieces of tape to the back of the stencil to hold it in place.) Then use chalk to either trace or color around the stencil, being careful not to lift the edges of the stencil. Brush the chalk away from the stencil using a cotton ball. Remove the stencil to reveal a heart!
Children can make collages with different colors of chalk and overlap their hearts if they’d like. art/fine-motor skills