Long-distance friendship activity for kids

I will share with you today our friendship activity that helped my daughter keep the friendship with her best friend after we moved to another country.

Last year was a busy year for us. We moved. And then we moved. And then we moved again. So my daughter has been saying a lot of good-byes to her friends.

We are blessed  that she is very social girl and finds new friends easy, but she never forgets her old friends. Especially her best friend Sibel.

• I  catch her playing and talking to her friend during her pretend play...
• I hear her wondering if her friend would like the dress she is wearing today..
• I agree when she says that Sibel was very sweet girl...
• I feel that Sofia will never forget her best friend...

Friendship is one of the most important things that is given to us as a gift in life. Many many many beautiful things happen because of friends. Even when you are 3 years old.

With this modern life and things changing so fast, it is getting harder to keep those friendships alive especially when you move and when children are little. But I think it's important to help your child keep the friendships even if it's in their hearts.

With all these feelings going we came up with an idea to make our own best friend - Sibel. Not the doll, but the real size girl... from cardboard.

Jump to:

• Prepare for the friendship activity:
• Endless possibilities for this friendship activity

Prepare for the friendship activity:

1. Draw out the shape of your child on the cardboard (I was lucky to find a thick cardboard)
2. Cut out the shape (depending on the thickness of the cardboard you can use scissors or utility knife)

3. Make some clothes for a friend doll. (optional) Later we just used some of my daughter's clothes. 4. Print nice face picture of the friend and attach to the cardboard doll.

5. Let the fun begin.

Endless possibilities for this friendship activity

1. The girls have a tea party.
2. They play dress up. That one was a fun one. It's still is, every day Sibel is being dressed with different clothes.
3. They read books. It's much more fun to read a book when someone is listening (even it's a cardboard doll) .
4. They play mommy and daughter pretend games. It's easy to carry Sibel (in most cases - the baby) around the house.

5. They tell each other secrets. It's good to know they will be kept in secret forever.

6. Or they just be BEST FRIENDS and be silly. Laugh and even have an argument one or two.

Keeping the friendship alive with phone conversations and skype calls is not really a 5 year old thing. So I was very happy how this activity with a best friend (who is far away) turned out.

The goal with this friendship activity was to prove to my daughter that you can keep the friendship even if your friend is far far away. You can still talk, play, share and love each other.

Looking at how beautifully they played I got very emotional and miss my friend too. Would it be weird if I make a doll/best friend too? 🙂 The coffee would taste so much better.

Miss you, Anna.