Help students explore friendship skills, understand social expectations, and build positive peer relationships with this Expected vs. Unexpected Friendship Behavior Social Story and Activities resource!

Making and maintaining friendships involves many skills that children are still learning, including sharing, taking turns, listening, respecting boundaries, and responding when things don't go as planned. This resource provides opportunities to explicitly teach and discuss friendship behaviors through an editable social story, sorting game, worksheets, maze, and drawing activities.

Perfect for individual counseling, small-group counseling, classroom SEL lessons, and special education instruction, these activities help students consider how their choices may affect themselves and others while practicing skills for building healthy friendships.

📦 What's Included:

📖 Editable Friendship Social Story

• Social story focused on expected and unexpected friendship behaviors.
• Introduces friendship expectations through accessible language and examples.
• Editable format to support individualized instruction.
• Opportunities to discuss behaviors that help build and maintain friendships.

🎲 Expected vs. Unexpected Friendship Behavior Game

• Game-based practice identifying expected and unexpected friendship behaviors.
• Opportunities to discuss different choices during peer interactions.
• Can be used to introduce or reinforce friendship skills.
• Encourages discussion about how different behaviors may affect others.

🃏 Friendship Behavior Sorting Activity

• Sorting activity focused on friendship expectations.
• Opportunities to compare different social behaviors.
• Encourages students to explain their thinking and consider context.
• Can be incorporated into individual or small-group instruction.

✏️ Friendship Skills Worksheets

• Printable activities for reviewing friendship behaviors.
• Opportunities to reflect on choices that support positive peer relationships.
• Can be used alongside the social story or as follow-up practice.

🌀 Friendship Behavior Maze

• Maze activity that reinforces friendship expectations.
• Provides another way for students to practice social-emotional learning concepts.
• Useful for individual practice or counseling activities.

🎨 Friendship Drawing Activity

• Drawing-based activity connected to friendship skills.
• Encourages creative expression and reflection.
• Offers an alternative way for students to engage with friendship concepts.

🎒 Quick Details: Elementary students | 📖 Editable social story | 🎲 Friendship behavior game | 🃏 Sorting activity | ✏️ Worksheets | 🌀 Maze | 🎨 Drawing activity | 🤝 Friendship skills

🛍️ Bundle & Save:

Want this at a discount with more activities for explicitly teaching behavior expectations? Check out:

🌟 Expected Behavior Growing Bundle

• Includes this friendship behavior resource alongside additional school expectations activities (assembly, bathroom, recess, indoor recess, bus, hallway, lunchroom, problem-solving, and more.)
• Features editable social stories, games, sorting activities, and worksheets.
• Helps students explore expected and unexpected behavior in different school settings.
• Useful for back-to-school instruction, classroom lessons, and ongoing social skills support.

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🎯 Skills Addressed:

✔️ Identifying expected and unexpected friendship behaviors

✔️ Building and maintaining positive peer relationships

✔️ Sharing, taking turns, and cooperating

✔️ Respecting personal boundaries and others' preferences

✔️ Understanding how behavior can affect peers

✔️ Developing social awareness and perspective-taking

✔️ Practicing communication and friendship problem-solving skills

💡 Ways to Use It:

• Read the editable friendship social story during individual counseling to introduce friendship expectations.
• Use the sorting game during small-group counseling to explore different peer interactions.
• Invite students to discuss why a behavior might be helpful or unhelpful in a particular friendship situation.
• Incorporate the worksheets into classroom SEL lessons about making and keeping friends.
• Offer the maze and drawing activities as alternative ways to review friendship skills.
• Use the activities to prepare students for cooperative games, recess, partner work, and Lunch Bunch.
• Customize the editable social story to reflect the expectations and situations relevant to your students.

👩‍🏫 Who It's For:

Perfect for school counselors, school social workers, school psychologists, child therapists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, special education teachers, classroom teachers, and homeschool educators working with students in kindergarten through second grade.

This resource is especially useful for professionals looking for explicit, engaging ways to teach friendship expectations, positive peer interactions, social awareness, and relationship skills.

🖨️ Format & Download:

✔️ Editable friendship social story.

✔️ Expected vs. unexpected friendship behavior game.

✔️ Friendship behavior sorting activity.

✔️ Friendship skills worksheets.

✔️ Maze activity.

✔️ Drawing activity.

This is a digital educational resource. No physical materials will be shipped.

📌 Important Notes:

Expected and unexpected behaviors are context-dependent. What works in one friendship or situation may not work in another, and students may have different communication styles, sensory needs, and ways of connecting with peers.

Use these activities to encourage discussion, understanding, and flexible thinking rather than teaching that there is only one correct way to be a friend.

Students can participate through pointing, sorting, drawing, discussion, or other communication methods that work for them.

This listing includes the individual Expected vs. Unexpected Friendship Behavior resource, not the complete behavior activities bundle.