Friendship Unit - How to Make Friends Conflicts Social Skills Compliments SEL

This unit has everything you need to teach your pre-k, kindergarten, first grade students all about what it means to be a friend, how to make friends, how to deal with conflicts and find resolutions, how to give compliments, and other important social skills. Taking the time to explicitly teach these lifelong skills will transform your classroom community. I refer back to what we learn in this unit throughout the entire school year!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This has been a perfect way to start the year. I love that it has activities to match multiple books and my students are always engaged in the activities. It has been a great way to build community in the classroom. Thank you!"

This resource includes social skills stories and scenarios, role playing activities, posters about friendship, sentence starters, writing prompts, and so many fun printables and activities to go with our favorite read aloud books about friendship.

--- WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THIS RESOURCE? ---

Please see the product preview for pictures and descriptions of all the included activities.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This has been one of my favorite resources I have used this year."

FRIENDSHIP SLIDESHOW

This slideshow is perfect way to kick off your unit and build student background about what it means to be a friend.

"I CAN" FRIENDS POSTERS

These adorable friendship posters can be displayed to remind students specific things a good friend does. These posters are a great conversation starter! I ask students which specific friendship trait they practiced at recess, during center time, etc.

HOW TO BE A GOOD FRIEND/NOT A GOOD FRIEND

These cards print four per page and can be sorted in a chart. These are great examples of how to act like a friend and how a good friend does NOT act.

Sorting behaviors/choices is an excellent activity that covers both kindergarten and first grade standards. This activity also has a coordinating cut/paste follow up worksheet and a picture word bank.

FRIENDSHIP SOCIAL SKILLS NARRATIVES

Seven stories are included for you to read as a class and discuss! These have real life pictures and give students a scenario and asks them.... what would a good friend do?

These make excellent openers for lessons and specific topics regarding friendship including making others feel welcome, including others, sharing, taking turns, how a compliment makes you feel, etc.

CONFLICT SITUATION SCENARIOS

These work really well for role playing with your students. Young children cannot just be told how to act, they must actually act it out to understand and remember.

These cards print four per page and they provide an excellent opportunity to role play about how to solve a conflict with a friend. Also included are solution cards - ways to deal with a conflict including apologizing, giving your friend space, ignoring a behavior, asking a teacher for help, etc.

HOW TO SOLVE A CONFLICT PICTURE WORD BANK

This makes an excellent visual for students to refer to throughout the entire school year and provides the vocabulary students need to solve a conflict.

PROBLEM SOLVING FOLLOW UP ACTIVITY

Students complete the writing prompt using sentence starters and a picture word bank. It is so important to teach students the skills they need to solve a problem on their own. You'll be so glad you took the time to explicitly teach your students these strategies.

MAKING NEW FRIENDS

I include several activities for students to practice how to make a new friend including matching picture cards, writing prompt, matching activity, coloring pages and cut/paste printables.

SHARING

This adorable rainbow fish craft can be displayed on a bulletin board. A writing prompt provides scaffolding for students so they can tell about what they share. This craft is the perfect follow up activity to go with a favorite book shared on the link below.

FRIENDSHIP FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES

Many activities included in this unit coordinate well with specific books about friendship. I show you which activities go with each book over on my blog post HERE

COUNTING AND WRITING NUMBERS

These standards-based worksheets make great filler activities that students can do after completing an assignment, for seat work, etc.

GIVING COMPLIMENTS

This is such an important skill to teach that is often overlooked in many SEL curricula! I included little cards you can print that the kids can fill out, along with bracelets students can give to each other when they catch a class mate being a good friend! Sentence starters and ideas provide scaffolding so all children can participate.

This is one of my favorite ways to encourage students to be kind, make new friends and focus on brightening someone else's day.

⭐ SAVE WITH MY YEAR-LONG THEMATIC UNIT BUNDLE ⭐

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This Friendship Unit is excellent. It covers alot of pertinent topics and provides many opportunities to discuss the topic of being a good friend. One aspect I really appreciated was how to give compliments - this is rarely addressed but an important skill for children to learn."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Social skills, like making friends, are so important for first graders to explicitly learn. Thank you for creating such a wonderful resource for my students!"

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This is perfect for teaching social/emotional skills. My students were struggling with this at the beginning of the year because, for some, it was their first time at school. They needed to learn about what is is to be a friend and this helped so much."

THIS UNIT IS PART OF A MONTHLY ENRICHMENT SERIES!

I love using theme based units to incorporate reading, writing, math, science and social studies into our primary day.

• UNIT 1 SEPTEMBER - APPLES
• UNIT 2 OCTOBER - PUMPKINS
• UNIT 3 NOVEMBER - FALL
• UNIT 4 DECEMBER - CHRISTMAS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
• UNIT 5 JANUARY - WINTER
• UNIT 6 FEBRUARY - FRIENDSHIP this unit!
• UNIT 7 MARCH - SPRING
• UNIT 8 APRIL - EARTH
• UNIT 9 MAY - ME AND MY COMMUNITY

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "This resource was so helpful for my students. It helped address some social emotional struggles we were having in class. It is called a friendship unit, but I feel it covered so much more, teaching students not only how to be a good friend, but how to specifically give compliments and how to solve problems. I highly recommend this resource."

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Perfect unit! I love that I can refer back throughout the year and that it actually helps my students grasp these lifelong skills."