Before young children can draw a detailed picture, they can point, choose, and tell. In this activity, pre-K students create a storyboard page about a friend: they pick a place at school, choose characters for themselves and a friend, and tell an adult what they like to do together. The adult adds the child's words to a simple sentence frame, "___ and I like to ___," so every child ends up with a clear, finished page they can proudly share.
The one-cell template keeps it simple. Children choose a school setting, such as the classroom, the block area, the playground, or the art table, and point to the characters they want. The activity works well at center time, in small groups, or one-on-one, and it makes a natural follow-up to a picture book about friendship. Print the pages to make a class book about friends at school, or send them home to share with families. Children can keep drawing their own pictures too; the storyboard is one more way for them to show their ideas.
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Due Date:
Objective: Make a page about you and a friend at school.
Student Instructions
Print each child's page, or show the pages on a screen, and seat children in a circle on the rug so everyone can see.
Hold up your own page and say, "This is me and my friend. We like to ___." Show children how to point to the picture while they talk.
Choose three or four children per session so the circle stays short and focused. Keep going over several days until every child who wants a turn has had one.
Ask the group to look at the speaker and think of one kind thing to say, such as "I like your picture" or "I like to do that too."
When a child names a classmate, invite that friend to stand up or wave. Children love seeing the friend from the page right there in the room.
Hang the pages on a friendship wall at children's eye level so they can revisit them and talk about them with families at pickup.
Simple ideas include a friend page where each child shows something they like to do with a classmate, a partner building challenge in the block area, a compliment circle, and a class book of friends. The best friendship activities for preschoolers are short, hands-on, and let children talk about real friends in their own classroom.
Keep it concrete. Ask children what a friend does: shares, takes turns, helps, and plays together. Point out these moments when they happen during the day, then let each child show one on a storyboard page or in a drawing. Naming real actions from their own classroom makes friendship easier for 3- and 4-year-olds to understand.
Friendships give young children daily practice with social-emotional skills such as sharing, taking turns, waiting, and saying how they feel. Talking about friends also builds vocabulary, because children describe people, places, and actions they know well. A friendship lesson helps pre-K students feel connected to their class, which makes school a more comfortable place to learn.
In dictation, the child says the words and an adult writes them down exactly as spoken. In independent writing, the child makes their own marks, letters, or invented spellings. Pre-K classrooms use both: dictation shows children that spoken words can be written and read back, while independent writing builds fine motor skills and early letter knowledge.
On the plus side, children can make a clear, finished page by pointing and choosing, even if they can't yet draw what they imagine, and pages are easy to print and share. The trade-off is that preschoolers need an adult beside them to use the device. Keep sessions short and use storyboards alongside drawing, not in place of it.
Start with choices instead of open questions: "Do you like to play blocks or go on the slide with your friend?" Let the child point to a scene or a character before they say anything. Accept one or two words and build the sentence together. Working one-on-one, away from the whole group, often helps a quiet child share more.
Let children point, gesture, and use their home language, then say the English words with them. A repeated sentence frame such as "___ and I like to ___" gives multilingual learners a pattern they can use again and again. Families can help by writing the child's words in their home language next to the English on the printed page.
A class book turns children's work into something they can "read" again and again. Because the pages show their own names, friends, and words, children often return to it on their own, retelling each page and recognizing familiar names. It also shows every child that their ideas matter enough to be shared with the whole class and their families.