Building a strong classroom community starts with planting the right seeds — and what better way than with a Friendship Garden?
Friendship gardens are real spaces that bring people together to celebrate kindness, teamwork, and caring for others. Imagine bringing that same spirit into your classroom — with crafts, discussions, and community-building moments that your students will never forget! Let’s take a look at how to bring these engaging craftivities, packed with social emotional learning, into your classroom.
What is the Friendship Garden Unit?
We’ve created an entire Friendship Garden unit that guides students through lessons on friendship, using a fictional character Gary the Gardener and garden themed craftivities. These lessons & crafts can be easily woven into your classroom day, giving students fun, hands-on ways to practice kindness, empathy, and teamwork while building a stronger classroom community.
The 10 day Friendship Garden unit touches on the following areas:
- Being a good friend
- Showing friends you care
- Tattling vs reporting
- Solving problems
- Winning & losing
Here’s the story: Gary the gardener is reaching out to classrooms everywhere in search of a special group of students who can help his gardening team solve their problems. Each day students will read a letter from Gary, or another character, and discuss a social emotional learning topic.
After each challenge, students will collect gardening tools to help grow our friendship garden!
Let’s take a peek at each of the crafts/displays for the Friendship Garden.
Day One
On day one, students will get ready to help the gardeners by creating an anchor chart and discussing ways to be a good friend.
Day Two
This is the official start of the Friendship Garden student mission. On this day you will put up a friendship themed word wall, students will read their first letter from Gary the Gardener and create gardening hats to wear.
Day Three
Now it is time for students to write out ways to be a good friend. After hearing a story & another letter from Gary, students will crate a gardening bag filled with ways to be a good friend.
Day Four
Caroline needs help in the carrot patch. After reading a letter from a new gardening friend, Caroline, students will write ways to show friends that we care. They will write their ideas on carrots, creating a cute carrot patch craftivity.
Day Five
Tommy needs help with his tomato plant. Students will explore the difference between tattling and reporting. They’ll sort through different scenarios to see how each one fits, then display their work on a fun tomato plant craft.
Day Six
Time to help Polly with her pepper plants. Students will read short stories and will write solutions for each problem. They will put their pages together make a pepper mini book! Short stories are about helping, sharing, and honesty.
Day Seven
Peter is learning to play fair in his pea pad garden. Students will read a letter about winning and losing and will respond to it by writing on peas.
Day Eight
Next, the class will create a beautiful bulletin board display. Everything you need is included in this resource including the title and flowers.
Day Nine
The last challenge is a friendship chain. Students will fill out links and will put them together to make a bright chain for the classroom.
Day Ten
On the last day of the unit, celebrate everything learned with a coloring page.
Are you ready to challenge your students with this engaging and exciting mission? Find everything you need to get started HERE!
Ready to plant the seeds for a stronger classroom community?
With All Access, you’ll get instant access to the entire Friendship Garden series, plus tons of other resources to make your classroom a place where kindness and teamwork flourish.
