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That’s a really good question – it’s really hard if some children already have friendship groups but others are new. But you are in a good position to manage their interactions because you can control who works with who. Something I’ve found works nicely is to give each student a small coloured card, or a small picture of an animal (or something else). At different points in the day, they have to find someone with the same coloured card/ animal, or they will work in a group, or sit next to someone with the same card. It just mixes them up but in a very structured way, and you can manipulate the cards to control who mixes with who.
If you have the opportunity in your day to find time and space to do an activity around commonality, it can be a great icebreaker. For example, you could try giving the class the leading statement: ‘Find someone who….’ You can decide whether they are starting in a circle and have to move to another point in the circle, or whether they move around the space until they find someone to sit next to who they have found out has the same thing in common with them. Options can then be flashed on a board for the class to respond to: Find someone who has the same shoe size as you / find someone who has the same number of siblings as you / who has the same number of pets as you / has a birthday in the same month as you etc etc… adapt to your preferred area of focus for your class. If you put a timer on for this activity and encourage everyone to quickly move, share, discover and change their position in the class/circle, it helps you keep control and clear expectations.
Allowing time for the students to get to know each other is crucial in the first few weeks. These early weeks can set the tone for the rest of the year and, giving the children time to make friends and feel part of the class community is so important for them to feel safe, settled and confident. I am a huge fan of Circle Time to help children get to know each other. In the first weeks, I would schedule Circle Time activities as much as possible so that you and the children can get to know each other’s names, personalities, likes, dislikes etc. There are heaps of Circle Time games that help foster connection (e.g. swap places if your favourite pizza topping is pepperoni or face the person next to you, label yourselves A and B, B must mirror all of A’s movements swap). Also ensure you are building in time to share thoughts and feelings in these circle times (e.g. ‘My wish for this school year is…’ or ‘When I come to school I feel…’). This will help build empathy with each other. If you are finding that there is a divide between the two groups, I would mix up seating arrangements and talking partners as much as possible throughout the day or week. This will give the students a chance to interact with more of their peers and develop more positive relationships. You can do this in a way so that it appears random (e.g. numbering students rather than naming them). At such a young age, children tend to be open-minded to new people and excited to make new friends, so, hopefully, you will see positive results in a short space of time.