Help your students create life-long memories by incorporating purposeful events that matter into their school year. To help your students create those friendships across the grade level, try incorporating a special friendship picnic. Events like this are easy to manage with just a few simple tips to keep in mind.
Keep it simple, try not to alter the school wide schedule to much, changing special area and lunch schedules can sometimes lead to mass chaos, so form a team with representatives from each grade level including cafeteria staff, admin and special area teams. This will help to keep the schedule reasonable and easy to implement.
Make sure all of your lunch time helpers and teachers know they are there to supervise the students to avoid any behavior issues.
Have a class discussion with your students ahead of time to prepare them for the event. Have students participate by acting out expectations, highlight expectations on your school news channel, have them write about the event prior to and then share their writing to the class.
Create a detailed schedule that is sent out prior to the event so the office staff, teachers etc all know where they need to be and most importantly where all the students will be during designated times.
Prior to your event make a plan for those extra touches that will help the day feel special. For our picnic we partnered up with our school business partners and found a local business that graciously donated some cookies for our teachers and students as a parting treat. We slipped these yummy treats into a cute vellum treat bags and sealed close with chalkboard thank you stickers. 
To decorate our outdoor courtyard areas we created some fun burlap banners to hang around those cement walls. The day of the even we hung these up along with a few personalized vinyl banners. I started with the wide burlap ribbon and then used some bright colored bandanas (cut into 1/4's) Tie them about 4 to 5 inches apart. Use some jute to attach some leaf and tent die cuts. You can make these as long as you need perfect for those barren walls that need decorating. 
With the walls decorated and the treats taken care of now all you have left to do is enjoy your picnic day! Help your students to find some new friends by introducing themselves and striking up a conversation. Now spread out those towels and unpack that picnic lunch and sit back and watch as those new friendships start to form. 
After our picnic we had our K - 2 and 3-5 groups head to their playgrounds to participate in a special friendship mission. Their mission was to introduce themselves to 4 people they didn't know. They had to tell them 3 things about themselves, something they liked to do, a hobby, a special interest or unique fact. It helped that we had prepped them ahead of time in our classrooms through mini skits, writing activities and discussions. It was so fun to see new friendships and conversations start to form. As teachers we have a critical responsibility in helping them to take a proactive role to meet new friends and be a good friend to everyone. Just one more way to always choose kind! 
To remind them of their special day we gave each child their own friendship bracelet. The bracelets served as a reminder to make new friends and to always be a friend even when its hard.
