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1st & 2nd Grade Books > A Friend for Mole

A Friend for Mole

text and illustrations: Nancy Armo

A coincidence brings together a mole and a wolf, who find themselves in the same situation: one is afraid of darkness, and the other is afraid of light. The two realize that friendship is their way to overcome fear, and that opposites can complement and strengthen one another. This is a story about support, and about realizing the good in every hardship.

Family Activities

Children develop socially and emotionally through their interactions with their peers and with the adults around them. This interaction helps them to practice building multiple social relationships and building friendships.

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Dear Parents,

This is a warm book that shows the beautiful friendship that was formed between a mole and a wolf. Despite the great difference between them, they were able to find what they had in common: the feelings and emotions that they experienced when they faced a predicament, as both of them felt fear, and each was able to feel and support the other until they became friends.

Children develop socially and emotionally through their interactions with their peers and with the adults around them. This interaction helps them to practice building multiple social relationships and building friendships.

Our children spend a large part of their day at school and with friends, and they are preoccupied with the question of how to build friendships with peers, a social skill that needs support and guidance. Parents play a major role in highlighting the kind of friendship that the child forms. This happens through dialogue, constant guidance and listening to the child’s experiences and their capabilities in forming friendships. Parents also play an important role in developing the ability to understand and manage feelings and in helping the child understand their impact on his behaviour, and thus on his peers and those around him, who interact with him, which would enhance the child’s social emotional intelligence.

Directing the child to see himself in the place of the other would enhance his understanding of feelings and would develop his sensitivity and empathy. Also, improving the ability to cooperate and solve problems will enhance the social capacity of children and support them in building friendships.

Family Activities

  • Let’s have a conversation
  • About feelings: We can follow the feelings of the mole and the wolf with our children. We can name them and discuss the reasons for why they felt this way.
  • About personal space: Mole liked his personal space. He loved his house, his bed, the smell of dirt and the darkness around him. We can ask our children about their favourite place/corner: Why did they choose it? What do they like to do on their own?
  • About dealing with problems and overcoming fear: The mole and the wolf were lost and strayed away from their homes, but they were able to support each other and return safely. We can discuss the following with our children: How do we feel when we are lost? And how should we act? We can listen to them and direct them on how to act.
  • About the formation of friendship: The mole and the wolf are two different animals, but they were able to become friends when they felt and supported each other. We can ask our children: How do the mole and the wolf resemble their friends and how are you different from them? What does it mean to feel the other or sympathize with him? How did the mole and the wolf support each other, and how did they become friends? Have they ever felt sympathy for their friend, or has someone supported them and become their friend?
  • Let’s act
  • Getting Lost: We give our children a similar scenario that the mole and the wolf faced, and we act out how we would act if we got lost. We can take turns with our children, give them a model to deal with the problem, and talk to them about it.
  • Let’s enrich our language
  • The story is rich in vocabulary such as: humming; heaped, dazzle, horizons; etc. We can explain them to our children before reading and immediately after reading them in the text.
  • Mental and emotional dictionary: the story contains mental vocabulary, such as: imagination; decided; realized; fake/unreal. It contains emotional vocabulary, such as: poetry; in love; amazed; fear; feeling reassured and confident. It is important that our child acquire these new words and can use them in their daily life to describe and express emotional states and ideas, and to facilitate their use during dialogue.
  • Let’s play together
  • Let’s use a blindfold: The wolf and the mole played in the dark and had fun. We can blindfold ourselves and play a game where we search for our children when blindfolded while our children try to escape from us.
  • Let’s explore
  • Mole’s Life: The mole is a special animal that lives underground. We can search with our children for information on the Internet or encyclopaedia about it (you can explore other animals featured in the story as well).
  • The Blind: We can suggest to our children to put themselves in a blind person’s shoes, to sympathize with them and describe their feelings and the challenges they face.
  • Let’s communicate
  • We invite our child’s friends to visit our home, and we contribute to strengthening our child’s social relationships.
  • Enjoy your reading!

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