Friendship Salad

We have been learning a lot about being respectful, being responsible, being safe, and trying our best. As a class, we have set up classroom and school expectations for different areas and activities that we will participate in. So to go along with this, today at snack time we made a friendship salad! 

I started off by explaining that the big bowl is like our classroom and that there are many important things that our room needs - especially kind friends and happy days at school.

First I added one can of mandrain oranges saying that these are the sunny smiles in our room. They are the kind kids that share, use their manners, smile, use their hands for helping, etc. The students all shared their ideas of kind kids. As one kiddo put it, "Kind kids are the ones that give hugs to people even when they aren't friends with them."

Then I added some strawberries stating that these are the hard workers in our room. The ones that get their work done, they always try their best, they clean up after each other, etc. They also added in their thoughts of what a hard worker is, such as, "They get their work done even when they want to play instead."

Then I added some raspberries stating that these are the kids who share. They know how to share their supplies, they share at kid time, and they share their ideas.

Next, I added some marshmellows saying that these are the kind words being said in our room. The students all offered their ideas of kind words: Please and thank you and I'm sorry, when someone gets hurt. Or as one student said, "Saying people are awesome!" Yes. that is kind too!

After that we added the yogurt. This is the happiness we feel when we are at school. When we laugh, when we learn, when we dance, when we give hugs, and when we get to play at recess.

Then we talked about the yummy friendship salad we created. How good it will taste and then I pretended to begin to peel the rotten banana.  They yelled "Stop!!!" before I count even get the banana peeled.  I tell them that this is the rotten banana that could cause trouble in our happy classroom.  This might be a banana that calls names, does not share, refuses to do school work, etc. So, we all voted NOT to put the rotten banana in our Friendship Salad! We discussed why the children do not want this banana in their friendship salad and the importance of following rules and having good manners.  

In the end we enjoyed our yummy salad and I think we learned a lot from it as well! Here's to a year of sunny smiles, sweet strawberries, and respectful and responsible raspberries!