Mental health has the been the whole school focus in Living and Learning. In Year 2, this learning has been based around the importance of special people in their lives and friendships.
We considered what makes a good friend is and the children compiled a great list of qualities they would want in a friend.
- kind
- helpful
- honest
- friendly
- not distracting at learning time
- generous
- loving
- playful
- caring
- polite
- sharing
- fun
In the subsequent lesson, we discussed the sorts of things that can cause friendships to break and what can help make friendships stronger? We thought about some ways to sort out friendship problems and discussed that difficulties within friendships can usually be resolved.
If children do encounter friendship problems which they can’t sort out themselves, they are encouraged to Start Telling Other People. One way to do this could be writing a worry slip in the class Living and Learning box for an adult to read and discuss with the child.
To follow this up at home, here are some friendship related texts.
- Hello by Jack Foreman
- Friends by Kim Lewis
- Halibut Jackson by David Lucas
- Friends by Kathryn Cave and Nick Mayland
- Rosie and the yellow ribbon by Paula Depaolo
- Two friends by Clara Vullamy