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Rafe Esquith: Five Tips to Help Children Develop Their Natural Gifts

#1528. The Freiendship Tree

other, level: Pre-School
Posted Sun Jan 23 07:29:26 PST 2000 by Sarah (sarahdillane@hotmail.com).
St. Alban's Preschool, Toronto, Canada
Materials Required: paint, mural paper, green contruction paper
Activity Time: on going
Concepts Taught: Social/Emotional Development (insentive idea)

I created the friendship tree in my class room and I am finding it works great. Together as a group paint a large tree on mural paper (five feet or so). Talk about how this is our friendship tree and we want to fill it with leaves. Leaves are given to cildren when you see them being a friend to somone else, a friend to our classroom envrionment or when they try somthing new and are so excited about it (ie. finishing a previouly difficult puzzle...). The leaves are pre traced by the teacher and kept in an envelope near the tree so the are always avalible. The leaves are very special and only a few are given each day. When they recive a leaf the teacher will write their name, why the got the leaf and the date. The children love it. They show their leaves to their parents and talk about them to each other. It has been a very positive influence in my class room. Hope you try it!