I think that we have all had some experience with bullying at some stage. Whether it be with ourselves when we were little or with our own kids. It’s something that should be taken seriously and should not be tolerated in our society. Trinidad Hunt has a wonderful activity you could use with your class about how to choose friends. I’ve pasted it on my blog as I feel it would be such a wonderful activity for you to do with your own children or if you are a teacher, do it with your class. Perhaps it could provide some inspiration for us as adults to take a look at those friends who are ‘poisonous’ to us. Let me know what you think.
This is the classroom activity that I designed, you can do the same with your class:
- Divide the class into teams of 4 or 5.
- Hand each team a large sheet of butcher or poster paper and a set of poster pens.
- Ask each team to draw a line down the middle of the sheet.
- Title the left column: Fake Friends
- Title the right column: Real Friends
- Ask the students to list the things makes a Fake Friend or a Real Friend
- Give the teams 12-15 minutes to fill their charts in.
- Have each team share their charts. Based on the following guidelines.
- Everyone must share something.
- One person introduces each member of the team.
- One person shares the process they went through to complete their discussion and the chart.
- Two or three students share the material.
- One person ‘wraps’ or reviews and ties together the presentation to close.
Close with a full room discussion on recognizing the difference between fake friends and real friends in real life and surrounding yourself with real friends.