Bright Beginnings Glendowie

What is happening?  we have recently begun an inquiry about friendship as an expansion from our on-going project on leadership and where the children have been learning about leadership roles and skills, how to be a good leader and why it is important to be a good leader. We have been expanding our thoughts on what friendship means to us and how to be a good friend.

Friendships at BBELC

Friendship is a huge part of our learning. It teaches the children about the importance of kindness and respect in relationships, how to treat one another, how to be helpful to others, important values and so much more.

We held a Friendship Day celebration and extended on this throughout a couple of weeks where we did different activities and meeting times to celebrate friendship and grasp an understanding of what friendship means to the children and discussing how we can be good friends to one another. We asked the children, “What does friendship mean to you?” and “How can you be a good friend?”

From this, we discovered that the children think being a good friend is very similar to being a good leader as we got very similar answers to questions we asked about leadership. A lot of the children mentioned many actions such as “helping wash hands” and “giving hugs”. This leads us to believe the children are more understanding of others emotions when it is portrayed through actions rather than words.

At Bright Beginnings Early Learning Centre, Glendowie, we strongly encourage the children to build relationships amongst their peers. We believe that building strong social skills leads to building many other skills that help develop children’s understanding of their peers emotions and behaviours. It also helps with their transition to primary school as they are more aware of the people around them and have the confidence to participate and interact with others. This of course helps them to develop relationships with others and more importantly, the confidence to initiate social interactions and maintain special friendships.

We are very proud of the effort the children have put into one another and the love and care they show towards each other. We have also seen some beautiful friendships begin at Bright Beginnings Early Learning Centre that continue on outside of the centre!