If you ask a group of students their favorite subject, most hands will shoot up to inform you that lunch or recess is the best part of the day. Why is this?

On a base level, it’s an obvious answer. Students enjoy the lack of academic pressure in break time periods after difficult cognitive explorations of math, science, writing, etc. On a deeper level, students crave opportunities to connect. They enjoy the freedom to chat and laugh and discuss the day with friends. These social connections are integral to development and a huge part of the learning that takes place within the school day.

But what about the student sitting alone at lunch? Or the one who dominates the conversation? What about students desperately in need of scaffolding and support within the subject of socializing? How can we, as educators, “UbD” lunch?

Social-Emotional-Learning in “The Buddy Program”

In recent years, educators have increasingly incorporated social-emotional learning (SEL) into classroom curricula. SEL is both a proactive and a reactive teaching tool, in which students practice social skills such as empathy, problem-solving, and productive disagreement. 

When teaching third grade, I was able to learn from a seasoned colleague who had developed and integrated an SEL-based “Buddy Program” into her class and curriculum. This program carried through the entire school year and crossed multiple subjects – including recess and lunch! In this post, I will walk through the intention behind the Buddy Program, and how we utilized the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework to ensure success.

Working with an experienced educator who is excited about adapting curricula and staying up to date with best practices is a true gift. In our time working together, we continuously tweaked and revised the Buddy Program to meet student needs. They had brought me into their process of developing the program years before, and we refined our end goals.

While there are many incredible “Buddy Programs” involving cross-grade level student connection, this program was intentionally designed to remain at our grade level. We wanted students to find connections outside of current friend groups, solidify bonds as a cohesive class, and maintain flexibility and openness to interacting with each other. 

Students practiced these skills throughout the year through structured activities and demonstrated understanding through weekly “buddy letters.”

At the end of the year, students compiled their stack of over twenty letters and reflected on their experience verbally and in writing. Letter writing is an excellent tool within SEL work, with the added bonus of developing literacy skills.

With these goals in mind, we were able to remain flexible to the needs of each specific class of students and develop/adapt activities accordingly.

Starting Strong from Day One

The Buddy Program began at the very beginning of the year. We selected buddy pairs on day one (there was always a group of three if the class roster was an odd number) and led students in a brief but engaging activity to find their buddy. Students received a puzzle piece that only fit with their buddy’s piece; they attempted to match words to pictures without talking; they solved math equations to match with the person who had their answer; and much more.

Through these activities, we discussed greeting a buddy respectfully. Some students screamed with delight when they found their buddy to be a close friend and sighed dramatically when it was someone they didn’t know as well. We discussed how it made someone feel to hear a sigh versus a scream. We play-acted respectful greetings and asked students to practice each week.

These SEL skills were smoothly incorporated in relevant and engaging ways. The best part of the buddy program was the constant shifting of partners. If a certain buddy pair really struggled, they had a week to practice before getting a fresh start with someone new.

Collaborative Learning with a “Built-in” Buddy

Throughout the week, we asked students to complete many activities with their buddies within academic learning. Buddies sat next to each other on the rug, so they could easily turn and talk in response to a question. Whenever we had a partner activity, buddies worked together. And buddies completed team-building challenges to support collaboration.

Of course, we didn’t want any pairs driving each other up the wall by Friday, so we did not arrange table groups by buddies and kept many activities individual or larger group-based. We also wanted to maintain the integrity of independent social time during recess and lunch. Thus, students selected their own playmates and lunchmates every day except for one within the week.

Structured/Unstructured Social Time 

Our weekly buddy recess and buddy lunch (held on different days) were integral to the program.

For buddy recess, students used classroom time to pre-plan an activity that excited them prior to heading out to play. For buddy lunch, students had assigned seats next to their buddy, where they ate and discussed teacher-prepped topics based on a fun weekly theme.

It was important to scaffold these free times to support friendship growth. Without scaffolding, some students struggled to fill their time, while others defaulted to chatting with old friends and left their buddies by the wayside.

Yet these support systems remained loose. If a buddy pair decided to play basketball at recess but quickly discovered they’d rather jump rope, that was their decision. If they found themselves chatting for the entire lunch period about the lunch question: “What superpower would you most like to have?” then, well, more power to them. This planning was grounded in our end goal of developing genuine and successful relationships between classmates.

How to Matchmake 

Another crucial element of the buddy program was intentionally matching students to support positive relationships. As you can imagine, complex spreadsheets were involved to make sure we kept track of who had matched with whom and when. If a student had a particularly hard week, we might match them with a buddy they felt comfortable with. Or if a specific friend group was excluding others, we matched students outside of the group to expand relationships to a wider social range.

However, regardless of relationship, we matched all students as buddies at one time or another throughout the year. Additionally, we asked students to complete two mid-year surveys listing classmates they’d like to get to know better. We then played matchmaker to select buddies that could be potential friends.

Buddy Letters – Reflection Matters

As I mentioned previously, end-of-the-week buddy letters were perfect formative assessments to gauge students’ SEL growth and areas for support. Not only did the letters enhance letter-writing skills, vocabulary, spelling, instruction-following, and reading, but they also served as a space for students to demonstrate their ability to make connections and show kindness. Reflecting on interactions is an integral part of developing a skill and is not to be skipped.

At the beginning of the year, the buddy letter guidelines were very specific. Students were to ask two questions, write two things they enjoyed about the week, and include something they learned about their buddy or a similarity they shared. As the year progressed, we loosened the requirements and provided more of an outline. Students knew the sentence limit and some necessary content but held more voice and choice in their writing. We asked students to turn in their letters (completed as a homework assignment) prior to handing them out so we could assess them. We then took the letters back so they wouldn’t be lost.

How to “Assess” Friendship

Grant Wiggins, co-creator of the UbD framework and founder of Authentic Education, once said: “Assess what you value. Value what you assess.” With this in mind, we wanted to ensure that we gathered evidence of students’ ability to apply their learning. For our final, summative assessment, we gave each student back all of the letters they had written to their buddies. Students then reflected on their progress through the program. They assessed how much thought and effort they’d put into their writing, their openness to connecting with their buddies throughout the year, and the relationships they’d developed. We then compiled all of the letters their buddies had written to them so students could take them home.

It was fascinating to listen to students discuss the process. Many noted that it had felt challenging initially to make conversation or feel comfortable. Some wrote that they had made new friends, and others admitted that they were surprised by how much they connected with classmates they’d been in the same classroom with for years. As educators, it was incredibly helpful to assess how students had developed in their buddy letters and how they reflected upon the experience.

All Ages Welcome

Third grade is a perfect age for the Buddy Program, but similar grades should reap similar successes. In a social period where students are discovering the world around them, there are many tensions of comparison, jealousy, and exclusion. By explicitly scaffolding the process of making new friends through backward design, we set students up for social success through the tumultuous times of elementary school.

Integrating successful social-emotional learning into your classroom requires intentionality. Just as we would never simply hope students stumble upon a math concept and develop an understanding independently, skills for successfully navigating feelings and relationships require scaffolding and support. Introducing and then fostering SEL skills during social times ensures that students build connections not by chance, but by design.