Bream Bay Kindergarten: Kindness bouquets

This years annual

Share your heart campaign

to grow children's understanding and awareness of the power of kindness was amazing!

A symphony of flowers and foliage greeted children and families as they arrived at kindergarten on Tuesday morning.

A rather stormy day would not deter our excitement...it was flower day! The day we made beautiful floral bouquets to gift to the people of our community.

Tamariki thoughtfully chose the flowers they wanted and with assistance from teachers and parents, tied them into a beautiful bouquets.

We were blessed to have so many parents stay and help tamariki make up their flower bouquets.

So many people caught up in the creative process and willing to share their talents and kindness with our community. We couldn't have done it without you...they say it takes a whole village to raise a child and this was a great example of this happening here...our 'village' sure does care!

A heart full of love, joy and happiness that is shared with others is such a special thing.

Some children enjoyed this experience so much that they returned again and again, making lots of bouquets to share with the community.

"The flowers were for the people. We put them on the street. That was for the people who were feeling sad. We should do it again cause them got sad and want new flowers"

said Blake.

If you always give, you will always have

(Chinese proverb)

Bouquets stand ready to be delivered out into the community. This year we gifted a staggering 150 bouquets!

"I wanted to give them to the people. I want to know do you like my flowers?" said Tai.

"My Mum helped me make the flowers and I liked the flowers. Maybe the people were happy cause they maybe think the flowers were good. Maybe other people could give to them and that would make them feel good again too. I like to share cause it's nice to share" said Vann.

"The flowers were so beautiful. We wanted to spread kindness to the city and the people. The people felt happy and I felt happy cause I spread kindness everywhere" said Alessia.

"I love giving flowers cause some people feel sad and flowers make them happy...people love them" said Isabel.

"It was so beautiful because everybody enjoyed the flowers. We gave them to lots of people and we left them on the street for everybody. It's kind to give flowers to people. People really need to give flowers to make the people's heart glow. The whole world would go beautiful like a rainbow if the people were kind" said Torben.

Kindness in words creates confidence,

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness,

Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao Tzu

Making deliveries...embracing the kindness challenge

The idea here was to encourage children to gift flowers to people they do not know or have not met by delivering bouquets out onto the pavement around the shopping centre.

Gifting flowers in this way can be quite challenging for some children…not being able to take their creations home or gift them to a loved one.

Our job was to help children work through these emotions so that they gained satisfaction and learnt about the joy of giving.

Of course giving in this way also meant that children most often had to wonder if they were indeed making people happy...it became a waiting game to see if they had made a difference. Delayed gratification anyone? How often do children get to experience this nowadays.

Part of the excitement included making deliveries around the local shopping centre...tamariki get ready to leave kindergarten to share their bouquets with the community.

This year we added weighted free standing floral bouquets for the children to make. This provided children different ways to be creative and were a real hit...look at these beautiful arrangements! Floral artists for sure!

Choose me, pick me, take me home...these

flowers are for you!

As bouquets were placed on the footpath, a little note encouraged passersby to pick them up and take them home.

It was lovely when people approached the children to thank them for their kindness. This is when children's awareness of their positive impact on people through their actions really started to take hold. As Annabelle said...

"The people felt happy cause we put the flowers on the street. The people picked them up and they felt happy. I've got the power to make people feel happy. All of the people can put the flowers on the street and have the power of kindness too."

The power of kindness...it lives in all of us...it must be true, you heard it from a 3 year old!

Gratitude...

A massive thank you to those people who took the time to stop children on the street, write cards, phone in or call in to see the children to thank them personally. This had a profound and powerful impact on the children's learning experience.

"We gave flowers away because it makes people happy. It was fun giving flowers away. I hoped the people that we gave the flowers to would feel happy" said Bodhi.