We were so surprised and delighted when we unexpectedly received a beautiful bouquet of flowers on Monday morning. That surprise and delight quickly turned to curiosity when we discovered that the sender was anonymous.
The card attached read...
"A bouquet of kindness for the teachers and children at Bream Bay Kindergarten.
May it make your hearts glow. x "
We deduced that it was someone within our wider kindergarten whānau, someone who knows about our kindness bouquets and someone who knows the language of the kindergarten ('make your hearts glow').
We thought long and hard about where this beautiful bouquet had come from... the teachers all had their own ideas. The wonderful thing about it, is that it could be any one of our whānau because we are surrounded by such kind and thoughtful people!
To stimulate some imaginative thinking we put the question to the children...
'Who do you think sent us flowers and why?'
Imagination supports learning through cognitive development. Children use imagination in their play to revisit their prior knowledge and experience. This deepens the learning and understanding from their experience. Children then draw from their existing knowledge and experience to imagine and create new ideas and possibilities. (Irvine, 2019)
"Maybe someone else?" suggested Tai. "Someone with long hair, who likes flowers, cause they look beautiful."
"Zoe's mum" said Harvey. "Cause she brought in the first lot." (Referring to the morning Katie spent teaching us about floral arrangements.)
"William" said Taumauri. "Cause he's kind."
"It must have been Elly because she makes flowers you know" said Annabelle.
"I think it's from a flower shop. I went to a flower shop once and I saw butterflies and butterflies like flowers" said Clara.
"My Dad" said Tahuhu. "Because I love him and he loves me."
"The postman" said Ben. "So we can smell them and so we can see them and so we can play around them."
"Cause we love flowers" added Nikau.
"My mum" said Tessa. "Cause she loves flowers. We have some flowers like this at home."
"A flower child" suggested Hazel. "Because they love us. The flower child has heaps of flowers. They grow flowers."
"Recognising that knowledge isn’t fixed, we need children to be flexible, imaginative and creative thinkers. Encouraging your child to use their imagination supports their acquisition of knowledge and capacity for creative thinking, and will equip them for success in school and life" (Irvine, 2019).
"Nina" said Sevy. "Because she's my sister."
"Maybe the postie" thought CJ. "He always comes to our house, he likes me. That's why he came to kindy to bring the flowers for me."
"I actually know" Zoe told me. "It was my mum. It's because of my glow box day. She was happy. She liked all of my pictures."
"It was me" admitted Irie. "Because you like flowers."
"My mama" said Aria. "Because she likes my stickers."
"It was the putiputi man" insisted Ziggy.
"Yeah the putiputi man" agreed Amiria. "He likes to give us some flowers."
So, to the kind, thoughtful and generous person who sent us flowers, whoever you may be, we are so very thankful. We feel so very appreciated and valued.
Our hearts are glowing!
