Be a Good Friend
The importance of our friends
by Rebecca Parkinson
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To consider what it means to be a good friend.
Preparation and materials
- Prepare some pieces of paper that describe some actions that show friendship. Examples could include playing a board game together, helping someone who has fallen down, going to someone’s house for food, going for a walk together, looking after someone when they are upset, laughing together, walking a dog and playing with a pet.
In the ‘Assembly’, Step 2, you will be inviting pairs of children to the front and showing them these pieces of paper so that they can perform the actions written there. - You will also need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (Be a Good Friend) and the means to display them.
Assembly
- Tell the children that you are going to show them some pictures and you want to know whether they can spot the link between them.
Show Slides 1-6.
Explain that the link is that each picture shows an aspect of friendship. - Tell the children that you would like some volunteers to come to the front in pairs. They will be given an action to act out that shows something that friends do together. You want the other children to guess what it is.
Show a piece of paper to each pair of volunteers and see whether the children can guess the actions as they are acted out.
Ask if anyone would like to act out their own ideas about what friends might do together. - Ask the children whether they can remember any special times that they have had with a friend.
- Why did they enjoy it so much?
- What made it special?
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain that it is lovely to have friends who look after us and care for us when we are sad. But it is important that we make an effort to be good friends to other people. Real friendship is not about what we can get out of someone, but what we can give to them.
- Show Slide 7.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is a famous American poet from the nineteenth century. One of his best-known sayings is, ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.’
Ask the children what they think this saying means.
Explain that being a friend is about putting other people first; it is not about being selfish and wanting our own way.
Time for reflection
Show Slide 8.
There is another famous quotation about friendship in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes. It goes like this: ‘Two are better than one because, if one falls over, the other one will pick them up.’
Ask the children what they think this quotation means.
Listen to a range of responses.
Discuss that the kind of action required to pick someone up might be as simple as smiling at someone if they are sad.
Ask the children to think about times when someone has ‘picked them up’ when they have needed help.
Pause to allow time for thought.
Show Slide 7 again.
Ask the children to think about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words again: ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one.’
Encourage the children to think of a time when someone has been a true friend to them. Maybe they have been lonely or sad and someone has looked after them. Maybe they have been stuck with something in class and someone has helped.
Ask the following questions.
- Are we a good friend?
- How could we become better at being a friend?
Pause to allow time for thought.
Encourage the children to think about possible opportunities when they could be a good friend to someone. Encourage them to look for opportunities to be a good friend today.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for our friends.
Thank you for the fun that we can have with them and the happy times that we spend together.
Please help us to be a good friend.
Please help us not to be selfish, but always to think of other people and their needs.
Amen.
Song/music
‘You’ve got a friend in me’ from the film Toy Story, available at: https://youtu.be/DNZUKm0ApEM (2.08 minutes long)
