Implementation of “Friends- An Artful thinking Learning Scenario” (SoI-GR-583)
Author: Stavrakaki Vasiliki
School/Organization: Kindergarten of Livadia
Abstract/Introduction
The learning scenario was implemented in a kindergarten class, after we had talked about emotions. In the context of this theme, we talked about friendship and the feelings we have for someone who is our friend. The children expressed their opinions about how their friends make them feel and what they like about them. Several times in our class we have statements like “I don’t have you as my friend” or complaints like “George doesn’t have me as his friend” or even fights between friends. We were given the occasion by these incidents to also refer to the negative feelings one can temporarily experience in a friendship. This learning scenario was also chosen to be implemented in our classroom as the children are at an age where they are starting to form friendships and have personal experiences on the subject, so we think they would find it interesting.
We express our thoughts about friendship
We introduced children to the topic with a short stop-motion animation about friendship. We discussed the topic and each child expressed their own opinion about what friendship means to them, inspired by the video. The kindergarten teacher asked the children questions such as “What does friendship mean to you”, and “How do you choose someone as your friend?” extended the discussion so that the children could express their views and understand more about the abstract concept of friendship. Then, the children were asked to express their thoughts in words with drawings. So they were asked to draw what “friendship” means to them? (friendship 8)
We see images of friendship
After the children made pictures about friendship and explained to us in plenary what they had drawn and why they chose to draw that particular picture about friendship, we saw pictures from Europeana related to the topic, which are mentioned in the learning scenario. The children described the pictures they saw and at the end, we came to conclusions about friendship (e.g. we saw pictures of friends in different periods – childhood, adulthood, old age – so one conclusion the children made was that people form friendships in their whole life or they may have the same friends from childhood to old age). friendship 2
We create for friendship
After the children understood the concept of friendship even more through the pictures we saw and the discussion that followed, we decided to create a collaborative painting on the easel.ly, where the children would depict something related to friendship. One child started to draw and after he finished, the rest of the children came one by one and completed the drawing. We created the painting in this way for our class, and after this, we decided to make the chain of friendship, since the children had mentioned in previous discussions that friends do things together. Finally, we all made a chain – garland to decorate our classroom, the chain of friendship. Each child made a section of the chain and on it the kindergarten teacher wrote a word dictated by the child about friendship. The kindergarten teacher stuck the cardboards inside each other and in this way, the chain of friendship was created to remind the children that, even if there are disagreements sometimes, they are friends and care for each other.
Outcomes
The children gained a deeper understanding of the concept of friendship, a concept that exists in their daily lives, as they form friendships with their peers. They worked on the activities with interest, as they had things to say and express on the subject. The Europeana material was useful, as it helped the children to better understand the abstract concept, through thematic images. For days after, the children used the concept of friendship in their personal conversations and drew pictures of the friends playing and doing things together.
As an educator, I think it is important and I like to talk with children about social-emotional issues and help to cultivate their social-emotional skills and create healthy relationships with their peers, starting at preschool age. Through the activities that took place on both emotions and friendship, I hope to have helped the children to recognize and understand their emotions, communicate with others and build healthy relationships.
Link to the learning scenario implemented: Friends- An Artful thinking Learning Scenario(EN-CUR-677) – Teaching With Europeana (eun.org)
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CC BY-SA 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Hirschfelde Power Station Foundation.