Making friends can be challenging for your students. Knowing what a friend is and how a friend acts are important lessons that occur during the elementary years. Help your students figure out the ins and outs of being a good friend by talking about it in class while creating a Friendship Book. Shape books are a great way to engage even your reluctant writers and a fun way to explore what friendship means to them. They are also a fun addition to your writing center and can be incorporated into a larger unit study on character and compassion.
How to Make Friendship Books
Start by cutting out a person shaped figure from card stock or a manila folder. Trace the shape six times onto other pieces of paper. You could also stack the paper and cut all six pages out at once, but it does tend to move around and not cut quite as cleanly. Use lined paper, construction paper, or copy paper depending on your students needs. Be sure to save the sturdier tracing figure to use as the cover of the book.
Have students use the following prompts, one per page, to start their books. (Tip: It is always a good idea to write the rough draft of the sentences on a separate piece of paper before using the shape cut outs for the sentences.)
- Friendship is…
- A good friend always…
- A good friend never…
- The best way to make a friend is…
- You can make a friend smile by…
- My best friend is…
After the sentences have been written on each page and the illustrations, if any, have been completed, staple the figures together with the card stock figure as the cover. Display the completed books on the ledge of the class white board, on a bulletin board display, or place them in a colorful bin in the class library so students can share their published work.