Exploring the Power of Friendships: Using "Enemy Pie" for Social Emotional Learning

By: Breanna Miller

July 17, 2024

From the moment I started teaching, I understood that at some point, I would feel compelled to dedicate part of my spare time to creating impactful, meaningful, and effective lessons for Social Emotional Learning (SEL). I decided to take the summer off from teaching summer school and I am so glad I did because it has led me to building this amazing platform and gifted me the time to work on constructing purposeful SEL lessons such as this one. I cannot express the importance in investing in yourself as an educator and collecting resources you feel confident in implementing while also seeing student growth - especially as little humans with their own goals, aspirations, and purposes in this big ol' world.

Many educators are familiar with the book "Enemy Pie" and have utilized it to impart lessons on friendship in their classrooms. Typically, the lesson involves discussing friendship, reading the book, having students create a Friendship Recipe, and culminating with a Friendship Pie. While this approach is valuable and preferable to not addressing friendship at all, it lacks opportunities for hands-on application, hindering students from effectively applying these skills in real-world situations.

At Sincerely, A Growing Teacher, we empathize with you. We recognize that the limited time teachers have each day makes it challenging to develop more purposeful lessons, given the demands of grading papers, attending meetings, preparing lessons for multiple subjects along with social-emotional learning, organizing, communicating with parents, analyzing data, and all the other responsibilities we juggle as educators. So, let us take this one off your to do list!

In this package, the only thing you need to supply are the book "Enemy Pie" and sticky-notes! We've got the rest covered! This package offers the opportunity for your students to participate in meaningful and stimulating conversations regarding the concepts of friends and enemies, and how our viewpoint can impact our assessment of others. The discussion will also cover the creation of our perspective, highlighting that it may not always provide an accurate assessment of someone, emphasizing the significance of getting to know someone before making judgments.

Although students will still have the chance to create their own Enemy Pie Recipe and "bake" it using an Enemy Pie template, we have decided not to rename it as Friendship Pie. The decision was made to retain the name "Enemy Pie" because the book teaches students that there is actually no such thing as an Enemy Pie. Instead, it serves as a pie that helps bring new friends closer together. The lesson concludes with students pairing up (or forming groups depending on class size) with someone whose pie differs significantly from theirs. Their task is to engage in the Enemy Pie Board Game, addressing real-life scenarios by collaboratively resolving conflicts observed in our classroom, on the playground, during related arts, and beyond. Students initially reflect on these situations independently, followed by discussions with their peers to practice and hopefully apply their problem-solving skills in real-world settings. The wonderful thing about the board game is they can continue playing it throughout the school year. You could even use index cards, cut them in half, and have students write scenarios they have seen/experienced on them to create new cards that are relevant to their environment and background.

Furthermore, our goal was to ensure that this lesson is deliberate, significant, and effective. As a result, you will also be provided with writing prompts and comprehension questions/written responses for students to complete either as part of the lesson or as an activity during reading group rotations. These would be perfect for writing or reading grades as they meet the Reading and Writing Standards for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade!

To enhance your SEL resources with purposeful, meaningful, and effective lessons, click the link and subscribe for more! Share your feedback on your experience or email us about your lesson outcomes so we can celebrate your achievements together!