My students LOVE Friendly Fridays™!
What are they? They are a consistent time during our week when we can focus on SEAL (Social-Emotional Artistic Learning). We create, we share and we work on our social-awareness and relationship skills.
Today, I’m sharing 3 great Friendly Friday™ activities you can try with your students that have a winter theme.
I can’t wait for you to try them out. And be sure to let our wonderful Inspiring Teacher community know how it goes in your classroom by posting a pic or a quick story.
Snowflake Flips (spread friendliness through your school)
Friendly Flips are one of my favorite Friendly Friday™ activities because they allow the students to spread kindness and friendliness around the school.
For a Snowflake Flip, students create snowflakes by folding and cutting paper. Here’s a YouTube tutorial on how to do that:
Students should brainstorm friendly messages they can write on their snowflakes for others to read. For example:
- Warm someone’s heart today.
- Have a winter-ful, wonderful day!
- Share a smile with someone who needs it.
When it’s time to put up the Friendly Flakes, as I like to call them, be sure to staple them up so that others who pass by can flip the snowflake in order to read the message. You may even want to add in a small poster with these instruction:
“Flip the Flake for a Friendly Message!”
Build a Snowman (and build some relationships too)
This fun idea comes from SEAL Teacher, Giovanna Foster who graduated SEAL Teacher Training just this fall!
For this, you want your students to create a snowflake out of paper. They can make their snowflake even more unique by coloring it or putting design on it. If you choose, they can simply just put either their name or a friendly message on the back.
Then, use the snowflakes to build a snowman!
“We read the book Max and Marla which focuses on teamwork and problem solving. Then, each student made individual snowflakes and I used them on our board to create a snow person. When conflict surfaced in the classroom, I would refer to the quote of how our snow person needed all of us to be created and we need each other too.” ~Giovanna
What a great SEAL integration!
I love the message that is in the title for this display Giovanna put up in her classroom:
“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.”
Snowball Fight! (to help us learn more about each other)
This is a fun way for students to learn a little bit about each other.
1) First, each student gets a piece of paper and is instructed to write a question they would want to ask any other classmate.
*Note: If you need, add in some time to brainstorm questions as a class before they write theirs down. You may also want or need to add in time to collect the questions and check them before proceeding. 😉
2) Next, have students gently crumple their papers into a ball (a SNOWball).
3) Then, stand in a circle or in two lines facing each other and toss the snowballs into the middle. (If you have the space, you have a small group, or if you dare, have a little fun and spend a little time having a “below the neck” snowball fight.)
4) Once tossed, students can take one of the snowballs and open it up to see the question.
5) There are a few ways you can proceed from here:
- If you have a smaller class size, you can go around the room or circle and have students read and then answer the question they have.
- The student can read the question they have and call on 3 people to answer the question.
*For an added element of relationship building, when someone answers the question and another students feels or is the same, have them do a motion that means, “Samsies!”
- Once students open the question, give them time to either write or sketch their answer on the paper. Then, everyone crumples up the paper again and tosses it for another round. Put these on display or open one every so often to see what people said.
- Skip the part where students open up the snowball and put the snowballs into a jar or bucket instead. Open one up every so often and invite students to share.
Snow can be a fun thing to play with in the winter, even if that means bringing these ideas into the classroom!
Remember to share how you used these ideas with other Inspiring Teachers in our closed community! Here’s the link:
facebook.com/groups/inspiringteachers
Be on the lookout for a new online course focused on Friendly Friday! Due out in August 2020!
