Primary Lesson 29 Supplement

FRIENDSHIP ACTIVITIES: Many excellent activities on friendship can be found in the Friend magazine:

–the August-September 1981 Friend (“Sharing Time: Make a Friendâ€?) has an activity on friendship and various ways to use it
–the February 1986 Friend (“Sharing Time: Friendshipping with Loveâ€?) has as activity with visual aids that can be used to discuss fellowshipping nonmembers
–the February 2003 Friend (“Friendship Messagesâ€?) has some phrases in code that might make a fun intro or review of this lesson; you could also discuss each one (“How do you win someone’s friendship?â€?) and/or have your students make up their own coded phrases
–the February 1984 Friend (“Sharing Time: Be A Friendâ€?) has a game about friendship
–the March 1989 Friend (“Funstuff: Friends of Jesusâ€?) has a short quiz about Jesus’ friends that you could enhance by discussing how each person was a friend to Jesus after the students complete the quiz
–the May 1989 Friend (“Sharing Time: I Have a Family and Friendsâ€?) contains a game that you could play in class, or have your students make at the end of class to take home and play with their families

SCRIPTURE FRIENDS: Brainstorm with your class other friends in the scriptures. Were Adam and Eve friends? How about Ruth and Naomi? What about Job and his friends? Can you think of others?

ROLE PLAYING: The topic of friendship is an ideal one to explore through role-playing. You could prepare situations in advance for your students to role play (“Your best friend asks you to drink a beer.� “Your friend asks to copy your math homework.� “One of your close friends is upset that another close friend doesn’t want to be friends anymore.�) or you could have your students generate ‘sticky situations’ to act out. Two (nonworking) telephones are very helpful props for role playing.

BOW AND ARROW ACTIVITY: Make a bow by stretching a rubber band so it fits over a ruler lengthwise and rests in the middle. Make arrows by cutting small notches in one end of a popsicle stick. Explain to the children that Jonathan used a bow and arrow to help his friend David know that he was in trouble with King Saul. When Jonathan shot three bows in the air it let David know that he would have to leave the palace in order to be safe. Give each child three popsicle stick “arrows.” Ask them to think of three things they can do this week to help make their friendship with someone stronger. (Ideas: Share more with my friend, Be careful not to gossip about him, etc.) Help them write their ideas on three separate popsicle sticks. Place all the children behind you at one end of the room. Holding the ruler horizontally, place the popsicle stick (at the notched end) in the rubber band. Pull the stick back towards you then let go. The popsicle stick will shoot across the room. Send a child to retrieve it and read what is written on it to the rest of the class. The child who retrieves the arrow is the next to shoot his. (This can be a fun game, but needs to be carefully supervised and may not be a wise idea for some classes.)