Friendship Windmill Craft
This simple and fun craft is perfect for opening dialogues about friendship and kindness, while learning lots of useful language.
♦ Complements 'The Invisible Boy' and other stories about friendship and bullying.
♦ Super useful phrases to help ESL kids learn more than just the basics while developing social-emotional awareness.
♦ Easy to target specific skills with a choice of templates - literacy, listening, speaking, writing and more!
♦ Provides scaffolding and support, while allowing space for creativity and critical thinking.
Ready for some Friendship Windmill fun? Get your templates and lesson ideas here:
What will my ESL young learners learn?
This craft is designed to help you develop social-emotional skills AND language skills. You can even open discussions about engineering principles and physics if you like!
Depending on how you conduct the activity, your students also get plenty of practise of their listening/reading, writing and speaking skills.
Don’t forget the valuable classroom language you’ll be helping them learn. See a summary below:
Phrases included on the windmill templates
Make space for everyone.
Be careful with people’s feelings.
Be kind.
Say and do nice things.
Other phrases included as suggestions
Invite different people to sit with you.
Celebrate each other’s talents.
Share with everyone.
Include everyone.
Other vocabulary and phrases that may come up in discussion
(feel/be) invisible; take turns; (don’t) get picked first/last; (not) be invited; laugh at someone; make friends; best friends; cry; complain; (hurt) feelings
Classroom language
Where’s the…? It’s here. It’s there. Is it…? Yes, it is. No, it isn’t. What is it? It’s a.. It’s…
What’s this? What’s that? It’s here. It’s there.
Can you find the…? I can see a… Can I have..? Here you are. Thank you. You’re welcome. Colours, crayons, pens, pencils, glue, pin, Straw, scissors, cut, stick, fold, push, blow, turn. I’m finished.
What do teachers say about the resources?
Frequently asked questions
Yes, of course! Maybe you have the time and enjoy creating things, but it has to be said that being a young learner teacher can involve a HUGE amount of extra work making materials. Give yourself a break!
All my materials have been tried and tested in the classroom. As well as having almost 20 years of teaching experience, I am also a qualified trainer for the Trinity TYLEC (Teaching Young Learners Extension Certificate), so you can rely on the quality.
Yes! They work great for mixed aged groups and different abilities because they come with different templates AND different suggestions with how to use the resource. No time wasted on adapting different worksheets!
The provided activity suggestions for pre, during and after the craft give you all the steps you need to make this the core activity in a fun and engaging lesson for your young learners. I’d recommend adding in a storytelling or song that connects to the topic such as ‘Invisible Boy’ by Trudy Ludwig and Patrice Barton.
You can certainly find some free worksheets out there, but I can guarantee your young learners will be much more excited to create this. Engaged and motivated children make for a happy lesson (and teacher!)
Once you’ve had a chance to use your materials, don’t forget to come back to leave a review. As a thank you, you’ll receive a 20% discount on any other resource : )
