‘Buddies’ or buddy programs are a fantastic part of many schools. Students in their first year of school (a.k.a. Prep, Kindergarten, Foundation) are partnered with a student from an older grade for activities and fun. Buddy systems aren’t just beneficial for the younger students, they help older students understand how important they are, as an individual, within their school context. Big buddies can see how who they are and how they think/act/behave contributes to school culture. Buddies might play games together, practise sight words or read books…regardless of the activity, the benefit is in the familiarity and friendship that is forged between the little buddy and their big buddy! Are you looking for some fun buddies activity ideas?
Creating a Buddy Book
在开始之前,你的朋友可以创建their own Buddy Book using a scrapbook and a title page. After each activity, they can glue in their work, their art pieces or any photos they’ve taken during the activities into their books.
To create this cover we used the可编辑的蜡笔页面边界and added the text and a box for drawing in Microsoft Word.
‘Buddies’ Activity Ideas Your Kids will LOVE!
(1) STEM Challenges
STEM challenges are so great to use in any ‘getting to know you’ situation. These activities are fun, and younger students will enjoy having an older pair of hands helping them one-on-one to achieve success!
Check out ourSTEM Challenge Cards for Lower Yearsfor some great activity ideas. You can also download ourSTEM建立筏活动！
(2) Origami Activities
Origami is always a winner! Like the STEM Challenges, origami is something that younger students may need a little extra help with, so it makes a great buddy activity idea. There are so many different creations your students can make… Some favourites include making anorigami jumping frog, anorigami infinity cubeor atransforming star using sticky notes.
(3) Roll to Create a Creature
This is a super funRoll to Create a Creature activityrequires students to roll a dice and find the corresponding body part in the chart to create a crazy creature. Big buddies can help their little buddies count the numbers on the dice and find the right body parts. Together they can create a crazy monster family!
(4) Selfie Craft Fun
You may have seen similar activities around the place during Christmas time, but it’s an idea that can be used the whole year through. Have students each take a photo of their buddy to be printed out on a piece of paper. Students then create arms, legs, a body and any other clothing and accessories they’d like to attach to their printed face. They can be drawn free-hand, or you can provide this funCreate a Selfie Templatefor students to colour and cut out.
Here are some other ideas to make this activity even more fun!
- Offer strips of paper that can be accordion folded to create arms and legs.
- Provide paint, glitter glue, sequins, feathers and other crafty materials.
- Create an “Our Buddies” display with the selfies of each pair of buddies displayed together.
(5) Board Games
This might seem like an obvious one, but seriously, the right board games can be such a great buddy program activity! Some great games include:
- Beetle
- Twister
- Kerplunk
- Don’t Wake the Dog
- Operation
(6) Nature Scavenger Hunt
让小伙伴和大伙伴离开教室是使Buddy Time感到非常有趣的一种肯定方法！为您的学生提供这个伟大的Nature Scavenger Hunt GridorNature Scavenger Hunt Checklistand send them out to find as many objects as they can.
If you have access to a class set of tablets or digital cameras, students could use them to take photographs of each object they check off the list. Then, two pairs of buddies can make a group of four and show each other the pictures of their nature objects.
(7) Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes Outdoor Science Activity
Another great learning experience that makes for a wonderful buddy system activity is thisHeads Shoulders Knees and Toes outdoor observation activity.
In this activity, students go outside and make a note of the natural things they observe. However, they can only take note of things that they see above their heads, at the same height as their shoulders, shorter than their knees or on the ground near their toes.
Having students complete this as a buddy activity is great, as the height difference between buddies can make for an interesting conversation about what each student sees.
(8) Create a Feelings Endless Card
Supporting kids in developing their emotional language is so important, why not include a related activity in your buddy activity program?
这超级有趣的活动需要students to create afeelings-themed endless card. Younger students will benefit from having their older buddies helping them out with this activity. At the end of the craft activity, older buddies could ask their younger buddies about the kinds of things that have happened at school that made their younger buddies feel each of the emotions on the card.
(9) All About Me Booklet
Like many of ourfirst week of school activities, thisAll About Me Bookletmakes a great big buddy/little buddy activity. Older students could help their younger buddies complete their booklet.
(10) Celebration Days
I would often use the buddy time to complete some of those activities for special days such as Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or 100 Days of School etc. Have your older buddies help the younger children complete special activities to take home!
Games and activities for your buddy programs are such a great way to welcome young students to school and to help older students feel an increased sense of pride and belonging. You can see all of these resources and get even more ideas by taking a look at ourBuddy Activities Resource Collection.
