Friends are a huge part of what makes life happy and fun. Preschoolers are very interested in their names and their friends names. My son loves to talk about his friends, their names, their nicknames, and their interests every day. At the preschool age a friend could be someone your child spends time with every day or it could be someone your child has met once at the park. The definition of "friend" can be very broad. This week is Friendship Week for our Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids and we'll be talking a lot about friends! Our featured book is Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems.
I love to use names and photos to explore the alphabet and work on visual discrimination. This week we are sharing how we made a simple friendship concentration game using photos of my son's friends. In this game my son worked on learning to identify his own name as well as his friend's names.
When you are getting to know new friends it is really important to learn their names. Once you know someone's name it is easier to forge a connection. I love to take photos of my son with his friends and display them in our house or show them to him often so that he can connect their face with their names, especially new friends. Making photo games to help practice names can be a lot of fun too!
MATERIALS NEEDED FOR FRIENDSHIP CONCENTRATION GAME:
- laminating sheets
- cardstock
- photos of friends
- markers
FRIENDSHIP CONCENTRATION GAME INSTRUCTIONS:
Have you played Concentration before? In order to play you have several pairs of cards that match one another. You place all the cards face down and then take turns flipping over two cards at a time, trying to find matches. Ultimately, the winner is the person who finds the most matches.
For our friendship concentration game I printed out four photos onto a 8.5x11 sheet of cardstock. On a second piece of cardstock I printed out four cards with corresponding friend's names on them. Then I added a backing to each card and laminated them.
When I was done I had a total of eight cards for our Concentration game. I started with only eight cards because I wanted my son to be successful right away with our game. Often if Concentration games have too many cards, kids get frustrated and don't want to play anymore.
Once the game was made, we played against one another. Our goal was to match each photo card to a name card and be the one to have the most pairs of cards at the end of the game.
This book list includes Amazon Affiliate links for your convenience.
Featured Book:
Should I Share My Ice Cream by Mo Willems
Additional Books:
Friends by Helme Heine
Chester's Way by Kevin Henkes
Frog & Toad by Arnold Lobel
Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry and Tom Lichtenheld
Best Friends for Frances by Russell Hoban
Enemy Pie by Derek Munson
MORE FRIENDSHIP THEMED ACTIVITIES
Our Weekly VBC co-hosts have been working hard to create awesome apple themed activities to share with you! Click on the links below to explore all of the apple activities for this week. We'll be sharing even more ideas over in our Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook group, so come join it if you aren't over there yet! The activity links below will go live on Monday, September 19th at 12am PST/3am EST US time.
Name Activities
Simple Friendship Concentration Game for Preschoolers- Toddler Approved
Spelling Names Ice Cream Center - Still Playing School
Number Activities
Learning about our friends - graphing activity for preschoolers- Rainy Day Mum
Sensory Activities
Kind Words Sensory Lesson - Preschool Powol Packets
Listening Games with Elephant and Piggie - Inspiration Laboratories
Cooking Activities
Cupcake Cones - Kori at Home
Making Pumpkin Ice Cream with Friends - The Educators' Spin On It
Science Activities
Ice Cream Catapult- JDaniel 4's Mom
Friendship Ice Cream Is a Fun Way to Practice Sharing - Mama Smiles
Color Activities
Paper Tube Friendship Bracelets - Clare's Little Tots
How to Make a Colour Mixing Ice Cream - Peakle Pie
Pre-Writing Activities
Preschool Pencil Control-CraftCreateCalm
How to Make Happy Faces in a Sand Tray - Big Owl Little Owl Witty Hoots
Share the Ice Cream Fine Motor Game- Views From a Step Stool
Movement Activities
Pass the Ice Cream Sharing Activity for Preschoolers - Sunny Day Family
Gross Motor Core Strengthening Friendship Activity for a Group
Friendship Ice Cream Throw - Adventures of Adam
Shape Activities
Build 2D and 3D ice cream cones with friends - Kara Carrero
Piggie and Elephant Shapes Sharing Activity - Mosswood Connections
Do you have a favorite friendship themed book or activity? Come tell us about it!
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