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Pink Shirt Day at Waikite Valley Kindy
“Speak up, stand together, and stop bullying!” is the slogan for Pink Shirt Day. Here at Waikite Valley Kindy, we acknowledged the day by arriving at Kindy dressed in pink. For morning tea the tamariki baked and enjoyed pink pikelets. Pink had spread to the art table too where children used pink pens, pencils, crayons, and paint to design their own little tee-shirt. Even the play dough where we made 'muffins' and 'snails' was pink. We all worked together to collage a giant tee-shirt with lots of pink scrapbooking paper and materials.
At mat time we talked about the meaning behind Pink Shirt Day. We talked about what being a kind friend means, what it looks like and feels like. We talked about standing up for ourselves and our friends if we hear or see anything unkind. This is being an 'upstander' and how we stop bullying. We read a story called “It’s great to be kind” in which a boy was being a little unkind to his friends at school. This sparked lots of conversation with the children here. They knew exactly which interactions in the story were kind and which were not. This is because we don’t just focus on social and emotional learning on pink shirt day, but every day at kindy.