Diamond Sort – What’s a good friend?

Today in Aongus’ 2nd Class we came up with a list of nine characteristics or attributes a good friend might have. Then we tried to decide which of these would be most important in a good friend. We used a ‘Diamond Sorting’ technique which is an active learning method. The children decided which characteristics might go at the top of their diamond and why, and also decided what should go at the bottom and why. There was some good debate about what a word like ‘cool’ or ‘beautiful’ might mean to different people. The children first worked in pairs, then with their pod and then we sorted them out as a whole class. We realised that a good friend may not always be happy and that maybe you need to be a very good friend to them in that moment. Caring, Kind and Helpful were characteristics that were thought of as very important.