Exploring Friendships

Resource Ideas

| HOME |

Description

Throughout this unit, students will have opportunities to explore friendship experiences of fictional or nonfictional characters and begin to develop a better understanding of their own relationships and interactions with friends.

Some questions that students may explore during this unit are:

• What is friendship?
• What are the qualities of a friend?
• What are the bases of friendships? (Students will likely begin with the ideas of common interests, nearness of place, belonging to the same culture, religion, club, etc. Try to elicit from students the idea that friendships frequently do cross or transcend ages, cultures, genders, abilities, and geographic location.)
• How do we demonstrate friendship? What do we do for and with a friend that we would not do for and with others? What sacrifices might we make for a friend?
• How and why do we choose the friends we choose? How are personal values reflected in one's choice of friends? Do we sometimes make mistakes in our choice of friends? How? Why? How does it feel to be excluded by others? How can we help someone who is excluded? Can we prevent people from being excluded? How?
• What might be some barriers to friendship? (Try to elicit from students the unfairness of choosing friends on the basis of physical appearance, race, etc.)
• What are some difficulties of making and keeping friends? How can conflicts between friends be resolved?
• Why do friendships break up and what are some problems when they end? Are there "right" and "wrong" reasons to end a friendship? What might some of these reasons be? How do we deal with the loss?
• How do different people deal with the death of a friend?
• What are some troubles friends get into together?
• How do families receive new friends? How might family members react to friends who might be "different" in some way? How can this be addressed?
• Can pets be friends?
• What purpose can imaginary friends serve?
• Can people of different ages and genders be friends? What difficulties might friends encounter, if they are of different ages and genders? How might they deal with these difficulties?

Major Integrated Resource (MIR)

• Collections 6 (WCP)
  • Looking for Answers
    Tales - Heroes, Deeds, and Wonders
    Off the Page
• Cornerstones 6 (WCP)
  • Growing Up
    Into the Spotlight (Self and Relationships)
• Nelson Language Arts 6 (WCP)
  • Choosing Peace
    Going the Distance

• Exploring friendships. Grade 6 [kit] / compiled by Curriculum Materials. --
  [S.l. : s.n.], c1983-1996.
  14 books (various titles) + 1 themes guide.
  • Titles are a good indicator of topics covered.
    RN 1-91190.
    Grade level: Int.
    Contents: The acting bug -- Bad girls (2 c.) -- Crash -- The crystal
    garden -- Daphne's book -- Dream quest -- Fitting in -- The gift of the
    girl who couldn't hear -- Gopher draws conclusions -- Here's to you,
    Rachel Robinson -- Not for a billion gazillian dollars -- Thief of hearts
    -- Words of stone -- Themes in Division II Language arts, year 4 (guide).

Web Resources

• Sample Unit: Exploring Friendships - from Sask.Learning comes this sample unit plan. Throughout this unit, students will have opportunities to explore friendship experiences of fictional or nonfictional characters and begin to develop a better understanding of their own relationships and interactions with friends.

Do you have a lesson plan, resource or web site you would like to contribute to this page? Contact us at: Online Learning Centre

| HOME |