Maintaining friendships during the often tumultuous years of middle school can be a challenging task for many students. As a speech-language pathologist, you are uniquely positioned to help students navigate this critical aspect of their social development. Today, we bring you a detailed middle school friendship lesson plan to foster meaningful connections among your students.
Lesson Objective
By the end of these activities, students will understand the importance of clear communication, empathy, and respect in maintaining friendships. They will learn how to listen effectively, express themselves appropriately, and navigate conflicts in a constructive manner. Feel free to use all of just some of the activity ideas, and save some to spread across multiple sessions!
Materials Needed
Paper, pens or pencils
Middle School Friendship Lesson Plan
Activity 1: Friendship Brainstorm (10 minutes) Objective: To facilitate a discussion on the meaning of friendship and its importance. Procedure: Initiate a group discussion by asking open-ended questions like, “What makes a good friend?” or “Why are friends important?”. Document students’ answers and create a ‘Friendship Word Cloud’ on the board or a large piece of paper. Use this as a visual aid throughout the rest of your lessons.
Activity 2: Role-Play Scenarios (20 minutes) Objective: To understand the impact of clear communication, empathy, and respect in friendship. Procedure: Discuss and act out each scenario in this free worksheet. Students can fill out answers independently or together as a group.
Activity 3: Listening Skills Practice (15 minutes) Objective: To practice active listening skills, essential for maintaining friendships. Procedure: Divide students into pairs. Each student will take turns speaking about a topic of their choice for 3 minutes. The listener must provide feedback, summarizing what they heard and expressing empathy where necessary.
Activity 4: Expressing Feelings (15 minutes) Objective: To enhance students’ ability to express their emotions effectively. Procedure: Have each student write a letter to a hypothetical friend explaining their feelings about a fictional scenario. Afterward, discuss the letters as a group, focusing on the language used to convey emotions respectfully and effectively.
Reflection and Wrap-up
End the lesson by allowing students to reflect on what they’ve learned. Encourage them to share their new understanding of friendship and discuss how they will apply these lessons in their daily lives.
Conclusion
This middle school friendship lesson plan is a simple, yet effective tool to teach your students about the fundamentals of maintaining friendships. The skills they learn in these lessons will go a long way in enhancing their interpersonal relationships and overall social development.
Sample Video
Students learn best from watching real students their own age model skills. Try out this sample video-modeling lesson below. We offer our entire Social-Emotional Learning platform free for 30 days here!
