Apple's Friends Starter Activities
| Site: | Skills for Life Online Teaching Platform |
| Course: | Skills for Life - Sample Sessions |
| Book: | Apple's Friends Starter Activities |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Friday, 18 April 2025, 2:25 PM |
Description
Here are some Starter activities to help children prepare for Apple’s Friends sessions. Choose the one which is most suitable for your class and the particular activity that you are going to do. You can use the same Starter each week – and create a ritual for starting the sessions – or try different ones, depending on what you find most appropriate for the theme or for the moment. You can also ask your children which Starters they most enjoy and find most helpful. Feel free to add your own ideas.
1. Apple salad
The stories in Apple’s Friends feature six main characters – Apple, Tig, Leela, Sandy, Jill and Tommy. Tell the children to sit in a circle and then give each child in turn the name of a character. When you say ‘Tig’, all the children named Tig change places – and so on with the other names. Children love this game! It is also very useful for splitting up groups of children who always sit together.
2. Apple says
This is the game Simon Says, substituting Apple for Simon. Tell the children to stand up. They must do whatever Apple tells them to do (Apple says touch your toes, Apple says smile, and so on), but if you omit the words ‘Apple says’, they must remain still. Any child who obeys a command without ‘Apple says’ has got it wrong and you must decide in advance whether this means that they are out of the game or whether you will just laugh because they were distracted.
3. What is good for you today?
Each child asks the child next to them to say one thing that is good for them today. Then the second child asks the same question of the first. Ask the children whether any of them want to tell the class what is good for them today – but keep their answers short!
4. Apple song
Choose any well known tune and write some simple lyrics about Apple and his friends in the stories. You can do this yourself or make it a class activity.
5. Say something nice
Sit with the children in a circle. Explain that each of us is going to say something nice about the person on our right hand side. You can start by saying something nice about the child on your right. Then ask that child to do the same for the child on her/his right – and so on round the circle.
6. Relax!
Tell the children to:
- Sit silently
- Close their eyes
- Take a deep breath
- Hold their breath for a few seconds
- Let out the breath slowly
Repeat this three times.
You can make this activity more relaxing by putting on some soft music. You can also ask the children to imagine a lovely, calm place while they have their eyes shut.
7. Follow the leader
Make cards for the Mystery Box with commands that encourage the children to get close to each other (e.g. hug a friend, say a kind word to a friend, kiss a friend on the cheek, squeeze a classmate’s hand gently, say something to make a classmate happy). The child who takes a card out is the “leader” and tells everyone the instruction they have to follow.
8. Clap hands
Tell the children that you are going to say various things that we can do to our friends (stick out your tongue, smile, play, push, help). If they think it will be good for the friend, they should clap hands three times. If they think it will make the friend feel unhappy, they should not clap at all. After you begin and the children learn the game, you can let them suggest things to do.