Community Building Activitiy: Friendship Salad

I decided to do a fun activity as a class to build a sense of community within my classroom.  The idea is not mine but something I have found online when researching for community building activities.  An activity that I came across and thought it would be fun for my students is creating a Friendship Salad.

The items that you need are: large bowl, mixing spoon, bowls, spoons, variety of fruits, marshmallows, yogurt, and a rotten banana.

I told my students that the bowl will represent our classroom.  I used blueberries, strawberries, peaches, and apples.  I came up with a meaning for each fruit.  I told my students that blueberries are the kind kids in the class, strawberries were the kids that don't ever give up and try their best, peaches are the kids that share, apples are the kids that are respectful, and so on.  A different meaning for each item. Then we talked about how yummy the friendship salad was and then I pretend to start peeling the rotten banana.  My kids started yelling stop and no don't put that in.  Then I told them the Rotten Banana could cause trouble in our happy classroom.  The banana will possibly be the name callers, the ones that does not share, cut in line, and say harmful/mean things to others.  As a class, we agree not to add the rotten banana inside our yummy salad.  Then we discussed the rules of the classroom and how important it is for each of us to follow the rules so we can not be a rotten banana.

Here are some pictures of the activity.