Group+11+Early+childhood

Hi Leanne. Yes I think a general intro as per Christine's is the way, then our two separate bits with a combined philosophy at the end is the easiest way to tackle it. Anyway, here's my version of what you have put above, perhaps thinking more in terms of an article......

How about this then........ a cut and pasted/fiddled compilation of both our contributions..... :)

Friendship is one of the major issues facing children in an early childhood setting. Piaget (as cited by Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007) claimed that children in this age group were still generally in an egocentric phase and had difficulty considering other perspectives. The creation and maintenance of friendships are a vital ingredient in meeting social and emotional needs (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007). Children must learn how to form friendships, work with others and to make and nurture connections. Such skills form the basis for any well developed individual who hopes to function, contribute and live in a society. For young children in an unfamiliar environment, faced with a diverse group of individuals, this may be a difficult task. By using stories that explore the issue of friendship and the challenges friends may face, a teacher can provide a resource to which students can relate and identify with the characters, whilst at the same time realising that they are not the only ones that experience such problems (Walker, as cited by Fox, 1995). In this example, we have focused on texts that explore friendship despite individual differences and it is hoped that the child will come to appreciate and develop an understanding of others, their differences and how acceptance, kindness and understanding form the basis for any interpersonal relationship. //Cat and Fish// (Grant, 2003) looks at the unlikely pairing of traditional enemies; a cat and a fish. After exploring each others worlds, the two realise they cannot maintain their friendship unless a compromise can be met. Compromise is an important part of any true friendship, and it is a skill that younger children often struggle with. The second book, //Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley// (Blabey, 2007) moves the focus to two children who are the best of friends, despite major differences in their personalities. Indeed, this book demonstrates that differences can combine to strengthen a relationship. For example, when Charlie is scared, Pearl, who is fearless, will protect him. This book sends a powerful message that friends do not need to have identical likes and dislikes in order to get along.

Blah Blah Blah strategies.....I think you are right, the two books then the strategies so have cut and pasted :)

Or maybe we are better off leaving the strategies till after we introduce both books? I'm not really happy with what I've put up here (feel a bit brain dead!), but between the two of us, we can tweak our paragraphs to get an end result. With the curriculum bit, there are several things we can refer to:- The Health and Wellbeing curriculum refers to social health "how people react and behave in relationships with others" - includes "empathy, trust, feelings of compassion, caring peer relationships and mutual obligation". The "Society and History" curriculum refers to Identity, relationships and culture - "students learn to explain how people are similar and different, how they are connected through relationships, groups and networks and how they acknowledge and celebrate diversity." The Arts curriculum refers to the arts and life skills "The arts provide a powerful context for learning across the curriculum and for making sense and deepening understanding in an holistic way, incorporating the cognitive, emotional sensory and spiritual dimensions of the learner. The arts develop verbal and physical skills, logical and intuitive thinking, interpersonal skills........." English-literacy curriculum - Reading and viewing a range of texts - " They make connections between their own knowledge and experiences and the ideas and events in texts viewed, heard or read aloud". So somehow, we need to stick this in, and keep to word count - AARGH - will step away from the computer now and look again with a fresh mind! Cheers, Janet Strategy ideas as discussed on Saturday (for the friendship theme): Reading the books together, __**English**__ activity of talking about what makes a good friend/what characteristics would a good friend have (whats an interesting teacher perspective way of doing this apart from using the dreaded 'discussing' word?), **__Art__** activity of making two puppets of opposing characters eg. one shy and quiet and the other loud or say a rabbit and a wolf etc, **__Social Studies__**activity concerned with sharing what our own households are like in order to see everyone is different and that difference is fine and good (not sure how to conduct this one, teachers perspective ideas?).


 * Friendship activities/strategies**
 * 1) "The Warm Fuzzy Book". Children thread cardboard pages together in preparation for the book. Each child brings to school some special photos of themselves or family members and together with these the pages of the book are made with other pages saying their favorite foods, colors, pets etc. Other pages in the book are made up of the teacher writing positive comments made about that child on an ongoing basis throughout the unit eg. "I like Amy because she is kind"........these could be discovered during mat time. Each child to say something positive about the person next to them. Book is decorated.
 * 2) "Jump Song". Children take turns holding hands with a partner in the middle of the circle. Everyone else sings "Sarah and mark jump up and down, jump up and down, jump up and down, Sarah and Mark jump up and down, now they sit back down".
 * 3) "Name Graph". Children to graph the names of the number of boys and the number of girls attending each day.
 * 4) "Hello My Friend" game. One child sits in the middle of the circle of children with a blindfold on. One other child approaches sitting child and says in either a silly or real voice, 'Hello, my friend, can you guess who I am?'
 * 5) Compromise activity: Children on the mat to suggest 4 or 5 activities they could do as a class that morning. Put each suggestion on the board and then get them to put their hands up and state their preference. Talk about how everyone's tastes could be catered for in the mornings session and guide the discussions the children have, like "Yes, that's a good idea and if we do this activity first then maybe we can do this activity when the time gets to ten o'clock ".

Something like these ideas maybe? Some more strategies Use puppets as role plays to solve friendship issues that require compromise - e.g. I like pizza with pineapple but my friend doesn't like pineapple - how can we have a pizza that we both like? I like to sit in the sun and my friend likes to sit in the shade - how can we sit together? Students help the puppets solve their dilemna. (Sorry Christine, just read you've already put this here but with skits) A Friendship wall similar to Christine's suggestion below listing the qualities of friends - caring, helpful, playing etc - however, at the end of making the wall, there would be an emphasis that these qualities do not relate to physical appearance. I.e. a friend doesn't look a particular way. //(You could make reference here to unusual friendships the children would be familiar with, like Shrek and donkey, and donkey's acceptance of Shrek despite his appearance)// Using the favourite things theme as above but working in partners to emphasise that friends don't have to like the same thing.

Hi Janet/Leanne, I was looking through some material yesterday and I cameup with a few ideas - discard them if they're no good. 5. Students in pairs choose a double page from the book "Pearl Barley and Charley Parsley" and create a freeze frame, eg. Pearl Barley on her motorbike, and Charley Parsley knitting. When they have made one from the book, they can make one of their own showing two friends being together but doing different things, either about the two characters in the book, or about one of their real-life friendships, or something made up. 6. Prepare some skits for the students, where two friends, who are different (as in the stories) want to do different things. Students work in pairs to work out solutions to the situations involving compromise, understanding and respect. 7. Each child brings along to school something that is special to them. Explain to the class why it is special. This activity is to help students appreciate diversity by understanding the different things that are special to us. Relate to the stories - what were things that were special to Charley Parsley, Pearl Barley, Cat and Fish. Emphasize that friends value things that are important to each other. The following ideas come from a learning sequence accessed through the Tasmanian Society and History curriculum document called "Worth their weight in gold" and accessed from 8. Students might draw or paint their friend and attach to a class collage "Friendship Wall" display. Students could write an affirmative word/sentence, or small picture about how they can be a good friend to this person, and attach it to the friendship wall. 9. Students conduct a survey about friends and friendships - ask questions such as: //Who or what can be a friend? How long have your friendships lasted? How do friendships develop? How do you care for your friend(s)?// //How are you different to your friend/how are you the same?// 10. Create a "Book of Solutions" where issues from the playground or classroom are described, and then solutions tried and tested. 11. Use a venn diagram to explore how the characters in the books are different, and how they are the same. Students could complete a venn diagram(s) for their own friendship(s) too. Pictures could be used instead of words for the really little children.
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Hi Janet (and Christine and Liz as I suppose we are supposed to be doing this collaboratively!)

Going on what was said on the web discussion last night as far as choosing around 4 strategies for each issue and trying to adhere to the reading, writing, listening, speaking curriculum guidelines here are my hot picks :) for the strategies for friendship:

Reading: Find as many book as possible on the theme of Friendship and place in the middle of the floor so students can read them as they wish (not very exciting but still).

Writing: "Friendship Wall". I think this was one of Chris's ideas. Students draw/paint their friend and attach it to a class collage display. To extend the exercise to more individual writing, students could write an affirmative word/sentence about how they can be a good friend to this person and attach it to the friendship wall.

Listening: Each child could bring something in to class that is special to them. This could be a regular morning activity so that all children have a chance to speak. Others must listen respectfully and then make positive comments afterwards. The class could then be directed back to the books and discuss what was special to Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley/what they liked.

Speaking: Can be as part of the above activity when each child gets to speak or do Chris's idea of the "Book of Solutions" idea where issues that arise from friendships or the playground are discussed and solutions tried, suggested and written down in "the book".

We live in a wealthy and diverse society, which provides opportunities for success in many areas of life. As teachers, we are given the task of not only teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, but also social skills that include developing a sense of community locally and globally through friendship, compassion, and acceptance (Tasmanian Curriculum - Society and History, p. 6). Through literature, the theme of friendship can be explored with early childhood students, to help them understand that rich rewarding friendships can be built with people with whom we have vast differences. Older students in middle school can extend the concept of friendship to a world-wide context. Due to the prevalence of modern communications technology and the media, it is suggested that from time to time many of our children will encounter controversial issues within and about our own socio-cultural environment and more broadly through our global environment (Oxfam, 2010). Attitudes of acceptance, compromise and compassion towards those who are different due to cultural, family or environmental diversity will enable students to understand and accept those who are forced from their country to ours to live in safety. Rowan (2001) acknowledges that Australia's educational system will play a fundamental role in preparing and encouraging this generation to effect their own rights and responsibilities for global citizenship (Oxfam 2010). Through literature, the theme of refugees/dispossession can be explored with middle school students, to help them develop empathy towards refugee circumstances, and embrace their differences in a spirit of friendship and cultural diversity.

Children's literature can be used on a variety of levels, depending upon learning goals - can be used to support and explore issues, can be used to explore vocabulary and spelling (e.g. alliterative texts), can be used as a foundation for a thematic unit (e.g. books about farms to introduce farm unit) or can be used purely for entertainment. Children's literature is perhaps the first experience children have of the learning environment. From literature they can discover how others live and learn to feel emotions of sadness or happiness as they connect with characters and laugh at storylines. Children develop and explore important values of empathy, friendship and diversity and use these early skills to discover deeper issues later in their learning, such as dispossession, inequality and conflict. "Children's literature gives pleasure to its readers; it is a carrier of ideologies in its themes and in its narrative structures; it provides a diverse assortment of maps of being; and it frequently addresses in different ways themes of growth and growing..." (Johnston, p.419).